


The Ocean's Curse

by TottWriter



Series: Soul Animals Verse [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fantasy AU, Kidnapping (as per selkie folklore/traditional stories), Pining, Slow Burn, Soulmates, elements of European folklore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-09-21 10:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 51,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TottWriter/pseuds/TottWriter
Summary: There’s a girl sitting by the water when Hitoka goes down to play on the beach one day. She looks a little bit older than Hitoka herself—maybe ten or eleven or so—and as beautiful as the porcelain dolls which sit in the window of the fanciest toyshop in Kumanobe.Hitoka is happy to make a new friend, down in the cove below her mother’s cottage one blustery morning. The girl is kind, and interesting, and it doesn’t matter how many people tell her she’s dangerous; a portent of an unhappy and lonely future. The stories are wrong. They have to be.She certainly hopes so, at any rate. Because for right or wrong, as the years pass she can’t give up their friendship, no matter how many obstacles try to keep them apart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, the day comes at last! This is my contribution to the 2018 Haikyuu!! Big Bang, and it's a bit of a long ride! It's accompanied by some wonderful art by CeladonHearth on Twitter, which you can take a look at [here](https://twitter.com/celadonhearth/status/1074665520841089026)!
> 
> I'll be releasing the remaining chapters twice a week until it's complete, so watch this space!

* * *

 

_I’ll tell the tale of the curse of the sea._   
_Of the ocean that shattered my heart._   
_Oh I’ll tell the story of what came to be,_   
_And why we’re forever apart, oh,_   
_Why we’re forever apart._

_They say she was born with a light in her face_   
_And a spark of pure joy in her eye._   
_She’d a spirit which warmed up the iciest place_   
_And a smile for whoever went by._

_But now we’re forever apart, oh,_   
_Now we’re forever apart._

_ ~Taken from the folk song ‘Shoreside Lament’. Traditional. _

 

* * *

 

There’s a girl sitting by the water when Hitoka goes down to play on the beach one day. She looks a little bit older than Hitoka herself—maybe ten or eleven or so—and as beautiful as the porcelain dolls which sit in the window of the fanciest toyshop of the big town. It’s all Hitoka can manage not to squeak in surprise, because the only thing the girl is wearing is what looks like a fur-skin cloak, wrapped around her body a little like a towel.

What if she’s cold? Hitoka has never seen her before, and dressed like that, she could be a shipwrecked maiden lost and alone! It’s her duty to help her…but she’s so beautiful that she almost doesn’t look real. How do you talk to porcelain-doll people? What if she says the wrong thing and _offends_ the beautiful girl and then she doesn’t want Hitoka’s help at all? She’d be a terrible person, making someone in such trouble feel bad like that.

Faced with the dilemma, it’s almost more than she can manage to keep going along the path until she reaches the little patch of sand which is her usual playground, but she makes herself do it all the same. After all, her mother’s always telling her she needs to be more bold. Be more bold, and less shy, less quiet, less nervous, less…well, less _Hitoka_ , it feels like.

But that’s not the strange girl’s fault. That’s Hitoka’s fault, and however much the porcelain-doll girl is beyond intimidating, she’s also impossible to ignore. Almost before she’s noticed what she’s doing, Hitoka’s traitor feet have carried her all the way down to the beach without her even really telling them to.

“Um…hello?” she says, her voice more a squeak than anything else. The porcelain-doll girl turns and stares at her, eyes wide.

Oh goodness, this close up her face is even more beautiful. Her eyes are soft, and dark as the rock pools at dusk, and she has silky black hair which falls halfway down her back, and there’s the tiniest little mole just beneath her lip on the right hand side of her face and Hitoka swears then and there that she will never see a more beautiful person ever again, and if the porcelain-doll girl is real, then she, Hitoka must be an artificial one scraped together out of mud and dust and not even cooked evenly in the oven, with straw stuck all over her head for hair.

_That’s_ how pretty the girl is.

“Hello,” the girl says, in a voice barely louder than the rush and crash of the nearby waves. It’s just a tiny bit more than a whisper, and Hitoka’s only nine years old but suddenly she understands what all the stories mean when they talk about love.

Well, she probably doesn’t actually, because she’s already had the most embarrassing talk of her life with her mother and that definitely featured a lot more weird body things and a lot less being happy to just _stare_ at someone, but Takeda-sensei never mentioned the body things when he told _his_ love stories about people going on quests to rescue maidens from castles and wake sleeping princesses with a gentle kiss on the cheek, and although the porcelain-doll girl is far too beautiful for someone like Hitoka to ever seriously dream of kissing, that’s rather more along the lines of what she’s feeling right there and then.

Overall, the sensation she has is that this is someone she _could_ go on a quest for—except not a real quest, because she’s just Hitoka, and honestly quests sound like very dangerous and risky things to do, and they all talk about robbers and monsters and corrupted soul animals who hunt down people searching for true love because they’re jealous, and bring them to the evil witches, and—

“Are you alright?” the porcelain-doll girl asks, and Hitoka suddenly realises that she’s just been staring at her for a very long time, and the girl’s lips were moving a little while ago and _oh no she was talking and Hitoka didn’t hear what she said_.

“I’m fine!” Hitoka squeaks, wishing the sand would part beneath her feet and bury her deep, deep down. Possibly in some sort of underground cave full of glowing plants and slug monsters because surely that’s where she’s bound to end up anyway, mud-and-straw girl that she is.

But the porcelain-doll girl in front of her is watching her, looking almost as quiet and timid as Hitoka feels, and although that _clearly_ can’t actually be how she’s feeling—it has to be that thing her mother calls ‘projection’, which is another one of the habits she’s meant to break—it stops her looking like a perfect, heavenly creature who could never be approached, and gives Hitoka room to take a breath. She _is_ another girl. A real live girl who’s just appeared on the beach, and real live girls can be talked to, however intimidating the prospect.

“What’s your name?” Hitoka eventually manages to ask. It isn’t a very imaginative thing to say, but it would be nice to know what to call her other than ‘porcelain-doll girl’, because if she calls her something like that she starts to sound a lot like a figment of her imagination, and she ought to have grown out of imagining people years ago.

The girl stares back at her, blinking slowly, and goodness her eyelashes are so long and beautiful, and even her confused expression is just so admirable that Hitoka could sit and watch her all day.

“My name?” the girl says eventually, sounding a little unsure of herself. “I…” She pauses, and looks out to sea. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one.”

Hitoka gasps. How can the girl not have a name? Oh dear, has she lost her memory? Is that why she’s sitting on a beach all alone with no clothes or shoes and nothing but a furskin wrapped all around her? Maybe she’s a princess, kidnapped from a faraway kingdom, only she escaped but when she was fleeing with a handsome prince she fell from his horse and knocked her head and now she can’t remember what castle she’s from and she’ll never go home and her parents must be worried sick and the whole thing is just so awful and sad that Hitoka feels a little like crying.

Her eyes _do_ water a bit, but she’s gotten better at not being ‘overly emotional’, as her mother puts it, so the tears themselves don’t fall. Besides. If the porcelain-doll girl had _really_ fallen from a horse and gotten lost during her rescue attempt, she ought to be injured, or have a special birthmark, or something else like in Takeda-sensei’s stories. And she ought to look sad and lost from being so alone, and instead she just looks rather peaceful, and quiet.

The girl blinks once more, slowly and calmly. “Do you have a name,” she asks.

“Yes of course!” Hitoka replies instantly, wincing as she realises that it was an insensitive thing to say. “I…I mean, yes, I do have a name. It’s…” She draws herself up a little straighter, hardly even noticing that she does so: “I’m Yachi Hitoka, daughter of Yachi Madoka, close cousin to His Imperial Majesty—although not really all that close or we’d live in the capital, and actually Mama’s Papa had a big falling out with the royal family years and years ago so we’re sort of in exile, except they still send Mama money and she does a lot of important work in Town now and then and tells me I still have to know all my manners because if…if something happens to about thirty or forty different people I’d have to go be an Imperial Majesty myself. But I hope nothing important _does_ happen to them, because that would be really really terrible!”

The girl nods. She smiles gently at Hitoka and to be fair to her, she can’t know what she’s doing with that smile, but it’s just too cruel, honestly it is. How can someone be so beautiful and perfect? How is it possible that the girl doesn’t even have a name? She _has_ to have a name. Maybe it’s just that it’s too perfect for Hitoka to ever learn. Maybe it’s so beautiful that her heart would actually stop if she heard it.

“You’re very quiet,” the girl says, and it’s all Hitoka can do to nod in agreement. She _isn’t_ quiet normally, not really, but she can’t possibly disagree the girl on anything, and anyway it seems to be true enough for the moment.

“Where are you from?” she asks in return, although clearly that’s a stupid question, because the girl already said she doesn’t know her name, and if she doesn’t even know her name then how could she possibly be expected to know—

“Mm,” the girl says, and Hitoka’s thoughts fall silent because the hum is so soft and sweet that she could listen to it all day. It’s pure music. “I come from the ocean.”

Oh.

_Oh_.

The feeling in Hitoka’s poor heart is like a fiddle string, played faster and faster until it snaps clean in two. All the air is sucked out of her and her legs are so unsteady that she could faint. _Has_ she fainted? It’s never happened before, so how would she know? Do people dream of beautiful and mysterious girls when they’ve fainted, because honestly it’s an odd thing to dream about but probably a lot safer than her actually being stood there next to a…a…temptress from the ocean, just like she’s always heard stories of. Creatures which take the shape of beautiful men and women to lure people out to their deaths. Is she going to die? Any moment now the girl could transform into some hideous, horrible _thing_ , and Hitoka would be completely powerless to escape because she’s honestly so surprised that she can’t even more.

But the stories always talk about men and _women_. Never girls. Never fellow children who just sit there, watching quietly with peaceful and serene expressions on their faces.

No. No the girl _can’t_ be something horrible. She’s not doing anything, she’s not hurting anyone. She’s just all alone, sitting near the seashore without even a name of her own, let alone anything else.

Hitoka chews her lip. “Why are you here?” she asks eventually, regretting the question almost immediately. How rude! The poor girl is just sitting there not hurting anyone and now she’s just bombarding her with questions that maybe she doesn’t even have answers to.

But the girl just smiles, softly and gently, and closes her eyes. Her head tips back and she takes a deep, slow breath, exactly the way Hitoka sometimes does when she smells her favourite food and knows that not only will she have a delicious dinner, but that Mama is home from Town and everything is alright.

The girl tips her head to one side slightly, and opens her eye just enough to peer out of the corner of it at Hitoka.

“I like it here.” She shrugs. “It’s peaceful.”

“Oh,” Hitoka says. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay,” the girl replies, smiling. “I like the company. I don’t have many friends, you know.” Her face falls. “I’m not supposed to _make_ friends, not really,” she says. “But I would like to anyway, if that’s alright with you? I don’t know any humans all that well.”

Years of stories give Hitoka the rules for what should happen next. Politely, she should decline, or make an excuse such as needing to think about it, or agree to be _acquaintances_ but nothing more, or simply run back away from the beach, claiming sickness or urgent chores or _anything_ which gets her out of the situation as fast as she possibly can.

It’s been drummed into her for years, a small girl who lives near the sea—you do not talk to those who dwell within it. You do not risk the wrath of the ocean people, and you do not fall for their ploys.

“Of course I’ll be your friend!” Hitoka says instead. She chews her bottom lip, and reaches up to unwind the shawl around her neck. “Here. Please take it—you look awfully cold in just that cloak.”

For several seconds the girl just stares at it, as though she’s never seen a shawl before. Hitoka winces. She’s from the ocean—she’s either a siren or a shapeshifter, so probably she _hasn’t_ ever seen a shawl before.

“You put it round your shoulders,” she says helplessly. “Or...or you could tie it round your waist like an obi—although you don’t have anything to be fastening closed I suppose. Oh! Maybe you could wrap it around your cloak to keep it closed! Then you could run around without worrying about it falling off.”

The girl’s face brightens with the most radiant smile yet, and if Hitoka weren’t already smitten this would be the point of no return. As it is, she’s sure she can never, ever recover. Nothing else will ever look beautiful again, not after seeing this smile.

“Thank you,” the girl says, taking it carefully from Hitoka’s hands. “How do you tie an..obi?”

“Oh!” Hitoka squeaks, hopping on the spot. How silly of her! “I’ll show you! Here, let me help. You…if you tuck your cloak around you, and hitch it up a little so your arms can come out the sides…”

The girl stands, and it turns out she’s a lot taller than Hitoka, but that’s not so surprising. Hitoka really isn’t all that tall. Mama shakes her head from time to time, calling her a little mouse and remarking that while the sea air might be good for many things, apparently it has not been enough to bring out Hitoka’s Imperial heritage.

But the girl doesn’t care—the girl comes from the ocean, and there are no Imperial Majesties to worry about beneath the waves. It doesn’t seem to matter to her that Hitoka is small and plain, because she lets her help with the shawl, watching with apparent interest as Hitoka folds it over and over again to make a long rectangle.

The furskin cloak is rather bulky, and even with the girl holding it in place it is no simple matter to tie the shawl around her middle and hold it where it ought to be by rights. When she’s finished, the knot looks uneven—too loose in some places and _far_ too tight in others. Just making it stay put is difficult.

But it has to be a lot better than nothing, and at least with it in place the girl can walk around with her hands free. And she doesn’t seem to mind walking along the shore as they chatter to another—or rather, as _Hitoka_ chatters about her life, and her Mama, and the little school in the village and the bigger school in the town along the main road that her mother wants her to attend in the spring, and all sorts of things about living on the land that the girl doesn’t know about because she comes from the ocean, where they don’t have schools, or Mamas, or even towns and villages.

The girl doesn’t say much about the ocean, except that it’s big and wide, and that of all the places along the coast for hundreds of miles, this is the only bay which seemed peaceful and calm enough for her to sit and wait in. As for why she needed to wait, the girl won’t say. She just shakes her head and says it doesn’t matter. That it’s alright for now. Hitoka doesn’t dare ask more when the girl so obviously doesn’t want to talk about it—against all the odds it almost seems as though she’s made a _friend_ , and how could she upset such a new and wonderful friend that way?

They walk back and forth along the shore until the tide has reclaimed most of the sand and shingle, and Hitoka has to hop and skip over the taller waves as they reach out to splash her boots.

“I should get back,” she says at last, bowing to the girl. “Thank you for talking to me though. I…I had a good time. I don’t normally talk to people at the beach.”

The girl smiles, and reaches down to untangle the shawl-obi around her waist. “I should give this back,” she says.

“Please keep it!” Hitoka squeaks, hardly daring to believe her nerve. “I…I have lots of shawls, really I do. I don’t mind! And…and I think you should have it anyway.”

The girl bows, eyes twinkling. “Thank you,” she says softly. “I am most grateful. No one has ever given me a gift before.”

Hitoka almost can’t believe it at first. How could anyone fail to want to give gifts to someone as beautiful as the girl is? Her Mama still gets gifts from various Imperial people because of her beauty and perfect manners, and she is older now and always claims to be past the prime of her youth, when even her Papa’s disgrace with the Imperial Majesty wasn’t enough to stop courtiers calling upon her day and night.

It’s not until hours later—long after the girl has bowed her farewells, and walked out into the water to stand knee-deep and wave Hitoka off along the pathway up the cliff—that she realises what kind of furskin the girl had wrapped around her the whole afternoon. She’s never seen a pelt like it before because no one will wear them for superstitious reasons, but she’s sure all the same. It was a sealskin. It _has_ to be. No other creature would have such short, fuzzy fur and still belong to the ocean.

_She’s a selkie_ , Hitoka realises, looking up from her studybook to stare out of the window as if she could possibly still be there, hopeless as that wish might be. Takeda-sensei has told stories about them, along with the many, many other forms that soul animals take. No wonder she’s never been given a gift before.

It doesn’t seem right. Firstly, the girl is a _person_ . A person so beautiful that Hitoka is not at _all_ surprised to realise that she is ethereal and magical, to be sure, but a person first and foremost. How could anyone consider her a creature or animal? She’s _seen_ soul animals. Not often, and she’s always tried not to pry, but now and then it’s impossible to miss them.

Alone of the creatures she’s learnt to recognise though, selkies have no happy stories behind them. All the tales say that they appear to those without soulmates, like a messenger halfway between soul animal and portent of doom.

There’s no word for the feeling in her stomach. It’s hot and cold all at once, tight and sharp and she can feel her eyes prickling with tears which she has to wipe away quickly because her studybooks are expensive, made of bleached white paper with beautiful pictures here and there and she really doesn’t want to spoil them, even in the middle of feeling like the whole world just ended because does that mean she’s never going to get a happily ever after just like everyone else?

After a few seconds of dabbing at her eyes it’s just too much, and she pushes the book away from her and retreats from the desk, running into her room and throwing herself down onto the mattress with a _thump_ . She’s already crying and it’s not very dignified or ladylike but honestly who _would_ be dignified or ladylike right now?

The pillow is wet through by the time she feels a hand on her shoulder and sits up, turning to sob into her mother’s shoulder instead. Mama stays quiet, holding her tightly until the tears have wrung her dry and the sharp, tight feeling in her stomach has shrunk away to an empty but still bothersome ache.

“Hitoka dear, whatever is the matter?” Mama asks, gently pulling at Hitoka’s shoulders to encourage her to sit up straight.

“I…I…She…” Hitoka sniffs and hiccoughs a few times before she manages to take a deep breath, calming away the hysterics the way Mama taught her years before.

“I met a selkie, Mama,” she whispers, looking down at her lap. “Down at our beach.”

 

* * *

 

Selkies are portents, according to the big, imposing book on Mama’s shelf which comes down that night to be looked through and studied. They’re _technically_ soul animals, which is why Takeda-sensei included them in his lists, but there are no stories of them leading people to love. Rather, it’s the opposite—their beauty tempts people from an honest path into one of treachery, and weak people steal their skins to trap them on land and marry them. The big book doesn’t say whether those people ever did or would have had real soulmates to make them happy, but it does state very clearly that should the selkie ever find their skin, they would leave and never return.

“There, you see,” Mama says, closing the book with a _snap!_ “I am sure that much of this hysteria about the creatures stems from misinformation and hearsay, made worse by the poor literacy in these rural parts until recent years. I can’t blame Takeda-sensei for teaching things as he knows best, but I will consider having a word with him to update his information and prevent this sort of misunderstanding from happening again. Hitoka, dear, so long as you keep your wits and don’t fall to weakness—which I am sure no daughter of mine ever would—you have nothing to fear from this selkie. However. Should you see it again, I would advise against interacting with it too closely. It seems they are born simply to tempt mortal folk into misdeeds.”

Hitoka nods dutifully, but that scarcely seems fair. The porcelain-doll girl _is_ a girl, even if she’s a selkie too, and she seemed to enjoy talking to Hitoka while they were both there on the beach together. And Hitoka could _never_ do something as awful as take her sealskin away.

Besides. Only _adults_ can get married, and…and the girl even said she wanted to be Hitoka’s friend. Maybe the stories about selkies is only true when they’re grown up. Even Mama’s big book didn’t mention girl selkies, just men and women. It has to be some sort of mistake. She’s only nine years old! Plenty of people don’t meet their soul animals until they’re grown up. There’s lots of time for this all to be just a coincidence.

It’s a lot easier to think of the girl as her friend when she’s just another child. And it’s much easier to sleep when she can simply dream of her new friend at the seashore, and not a mysterious creature who promises a lonely future.

 

* * *

 

Seven days later, Hitoka sees the girl from her bedroom window. She’s walking along the shore, dragging her toes in the surf and gazing out to sea. It’s a lonely picture, especially under the dreary, overcast skies which stretch from one side of the horizon to the other, and try as she might, there’s no way Hitoka can resist.

She dresses warmly—it’s still only early spring, after all, and the wind is bitter and chill on a day like this—and hurries to leave the house before Mama notices. Before she leaves, she grabs an extra pair of sandals. What if the girl gets sore feet walking along the beach like that? If she’s used to being in the water, she can’t possibly have the hard callouses which Hitoka has built up through years of clambering across the rocks.

The girl is still wandering along the beach when she arrives, seemingly unaware of Hitoka until she runs up and announces her presence with a cheerful: “Hello!”

She looks at Hitoka and smiles, and it’s as though Mama never warned her or showed her the big book of scary stories at all. How can the girl be a bad omen when she’s just a beautiful, perfect friend, one who’s so good that she doesn’t even mind how plain Hitoka is by comparison, and accepts the sandals with a delighted smile which looks like the culmination of everything which is good in the world?

“What are they?” the girl asks, and oh of _course_ she doesn’t know what sandals are, because she spends all her time in the sea where people don’t wear sandals, or shoes, or anything like that.

“You put them on your feet,” Hitoka explains, lifting the lower part of her skirt so that the girl can see the sandals she’s wearing herself. “They help keep them safe from sharp rocks or crabs or anything on the ground which might scratch you, and they keep your feet clean as well normally, but I suppose if you live in the sea that’s like washing your feet all the time anyway. So you probably don’t need to worry too much about that side of things.”

“Oh,” the girl says, kneeling so that she can slip them on. “They feel…strange. Rather scratchy.”

It’s not until a few minutes later that Hitoka realises that there must be sand caught between the girl’s toes and the leather of the sandals, and squeaks in dismay before leading her friend over to a rock where they can sit and let their bare feet dangle in the water, washing them clean.

“If you get sand in your sandals they won’t be comfortable,” Hitoka explains. “The grains rub and rub at your skin, and Mama says that it’s good to rub sand on your skin each day because it stops wrinkles, but I don’t really think anyone ought to worry about wrinkles on their _feet_ , and anyway wrinkles don’t happen until you’re grown up like she is, which won’t be for years yet.”

The girl nods solemnly. Do people who might be selkies _ever_ get wrinkles? She’s not really sure, but either way it probably doesn’t matter. There’s still no need to go around with sandy feet when they can dip them in the sea, and even if it _is_ rather a cold day, that’s fine. She doesn’t feel cold at all, talking to her new friend, and explaining about life on the land. About flowers and seasons, and her favourite festivals throughout the year, when people dance and sing on the village green and she can forget about being thirty people away from becoming an Imperial Majesty, and just be plain old Yachi Hitoka, dancing with the other children from the village.

“How do you dance?” the girl asks. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“Oh!” Hitoka gasps. “Never seen…I’ll show you! Come on, we can dance together! You just…you move your body to the music. We don’t have any instruments, but the ocean can be our music. Listen, the waves are like a beat, but slower, so we’ll have to pretend there are twice as many. If we were really at a dance, there would be drums and flutes, but I don’t know how to play those even if we _did_ have some, and you can’t really play and dance at the same time. Not this kind of dancing, anyway.”

She leads the way across the sand to an open area near the cliff edge, and gestures for the girl to join her, showing her the dances which she’s known since almost before she could walk. It’s not quite the same without the music, or without the singing of the people who really _can_ sing, but it’s fun all the same, and it’s not until the tide reaches them that she realises how much time has passed.

“Oh!” she cries, disappointed. “I…I need to go. I’m meant to have lessons and Mama will be wondering where I am. I’m sorry. I had a lot of fun today.”

“I did too,” the girl says, smiling. She reaches down to free her feet. “Here, your sandals.”

“You should keep them!” Hitoka says. “You… if you want to use them for walking on the beach or climbing rocks they’ll be very helpful. I want you to have them.”

The girl stares at her, holding the sandals tightly in her hands. Her face lights up with the most beautiful smile Hitoka has ever seen. It’s so bright that she almost has to look away, in fact, and she’s too dumbfounded to respond when the girl steps closer and wraps her arms around her shoulders in a fierce hug.

“Thank you, Hitoka-chan,” she says, voice soft enough that Hitoka almost doesn’t hear. “They are a wonderful gift.”

She smells strongly of salt water and the ocean, but her hands are not cold like the stories say of sea-people. Her hands and cheek are warm, and even as she walks back up to her house on the cliffside, Hitoka can’t stop smiling. Even when Mama sternly asks her where she’s been this whole time, she can’t quite shake the good feeling.

“I was playing with my friend,” she replies.

“A _friend?_ ” Mama asks, lifting one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Who?”

Hitoka’s mind whites out with panic. If she tells Mama that she was playing with a selkie again, what will happen? She might get sent away to protect her, and then she’ll never be able to say goodbye, even, and what if her friend comes back to play again, and she’s left walking along the shore all by herself and alone, wondering what happened and thinking that Hitoka doesn’t care any more, or worse still died, and then she’ll give up and never come back, and then Hitoka will come home again and she’ll have to walk along the beach all by herself forever, never being able to explain or apologise—

“A girl!” she says as her mother’s brow descends towards a frown. The words are blurted out so fast that she’s halfway sure they don’t make any sense at all. “She…her…”

What can she say? The girl doesn’t even have a name, what’s she supposed to say when Mama asks that? Racing along at breakneck speed, her thoughts crowd and panic her, throwing out possible names to give as a cover. Ocean names like Manami or Yoko—but that’s no good, because if she gives an ocean name then Mama will surely guess where her friend really comes from and then it will be just as bad as telling her she was playing with a selkie only _worse_ because she’ll have lied, and she never lies to Mama—

“Who is this girl?” Mama asks, and Hitoka’s mind is suddenly empty, all her rushed, panicked thoughts leaving her to face Mama’s inevitable wrath alone.

“Her…her…you mean her name, Mama?” Hitoka asks, wilting a little as Mama nods once. “It…she…” An idea hits. “Ichioka! Ichioka…Miyako!”

Mama’s face settles into a more neutral expression, although her eyes are still rather narrow. Hitoka holds her breath, sure she must have been found out.

“Hitoka, I have spoken of this before,” Mama says, and oh no, this is it. She’s been found out and now she’s going to be scolded and sent away and what if there are robbers on the road, or bandits who kill the guards and rob her and kidnap her and she has to spend years and years cooking for the bandits because they set the ransom too high and Mama won’t pay it, and—

“Hitoka, your imagination carries you with it and must be reigned in. I am disappointed that you would lie to cover missing your lessons. You must learn to keep better track of time in future. You will stay at your studies today until they are complete to my satisfaction, understood? It will not do to allow yourself to grow into poor habits. As an adult you must be the owner of your mind and your thoughts. _Discipline_ is vital to that end.”

It’s almost impossible to keep her face level as Mama scolds her, because Hitoka is sure she’s about to laugh with relief. Never has Mama’s stern expression been so welcome. She ducks her face down as though she is disappointed, and mumbles her apology through a face held solemn by the pain of her teeth biting her lips. Banished to the schoolroom, she collapses at her desk and lies there unmoving for long minutes.

She lied to Mama. She lied to Mama and sort of almost got _away_ with it, and now she has to be twice as careful, because surely Mama will be suspicious. But even so, she wasn’t banned from the beach, and she wasn’t sent away, and Mama didn’t say anything about selkies at all.

It’s not exactly _permission_. But it’s sort of close, isn’t it?

 

* * *

 

Another seven days pass before Hitoka sees the girl again. She keeps watch, early every morning, and this time she actually sees a small, dark shape in the water, swimming steadily to shore. She loses sight of it as it ducks around the rocks on either side of the cove, but sure enough, a few minutes later there is a figure walking along the sand, hair billowing out around her face in the brisk early-morning breeze. It’s hard to make out at this distance, but Hitoka thinks she’s wearing her sandals.

Mama is still asleep, and the house is cold and odourless which means the cook hasn’t arrived yet either. There’s no one to watch as Hitoka sneaks out and makes her way down the path to the shore, having thrown on her clothes in a great enough hurry that she’s still straightening them as she goes.

“Hello!” she cries, running up to the girl all out of breath. “I…I saw you, I think! Swimming in the sea! I…I mean that is…er—”

The girl silences her with a smile. It’s the most beautiful thing Hitoka has ever seen: broad and confident, eyes crinkled with her lips parted enough that her pure white teeth are visible.

“I’m glad to see you too, Hitoka-chan,” the girl says. “I was…I hoped you would visit. Is it not quite early for you, though?”

“Oh I don’t mind!” Hitoka says, half giddy with excitement. “I was awake, and this way I won’t miss so much of my lessons, so I can stay for a little longer, maybe.”

The girl beams. “I asked the others about names,” she says after a few minutes walking along the beach together. “They were…uncomfortable talking about it. They said that names are very powerful, and should only be shared with people who you can trust absolutely. It’s one reason we don’t have names until we’re older—that way we can’t accidentally share them when we’re too young.”

Hitoka stares at her. “I never knew that!” she gasps, clapping her hands over my mouth. “A lot of people know my true name in the village, and then his Imperial Majesty does too, and all the other people who Mama told about me. Do you think it matters that they all know? I don’t want anything bad to happen because they know my name and they’re not supposed to!”

The girl’s smile drops a moment, before recovering. “Perhaps it’s different for humans,” she says. “You are mortal. I’m sure there isn’t as much power in mortal names as there is for my kind. That’s why you have yours already, while I must wait until I am older.”

“How old _are_ you?”

The question is out before Hitoka has a chance to catch herself, or consider how impertinent it is to ask. She claps her hands over her mouth in horror almost immediately, but it’s too late. The damage is done and the words are said, and…the girl is laughing? Oh gosh she’s _laughing_ , and it’s the most beautiful sound Hitoka has ever heard.

“I have passed twelve winters under the waves, Hitoka-chan,” the girl says. “For a selkie, I am very young indeed.”

“I don’t think I ever heard of a child selkie before,” Hitoka says, nodding. “Takeda-sensei only has stories about selkie women who are adults.”

The girl nods. “My kind don’t interact with yours very often,” she says. “Particularly until we’re grown. My family…” She falters. “My family don’t speak well of humans.”

Hitoka nods, feeling suddenly like she’s on the edge of a revelation. “Mama and Takeda-sensei don’t say many nice things about your people either!” she says. “But I think it must all be just a mistake somehow. I mean, I really…we…we get along okay, right?”

The moment the words are out of her mouth Hitoka is filled with regret, wishing she could unsay them because _now_ she’s done it—she’s pressuring the girl into a reply she can’t possibly want to give. It’s a heart-stopping moment, but then the girl smiles broadly, and nods, and by the time she speaks Hitoka’s poor heart has begun to recover a little.

“We do,” the girl says, slowly and thoughtfully. “I enjoy talking to you, Hitoka-chan. I like being your friend.”

 

* * *

 

Hitoka eventually makes it back to the house without anyone the wiser about her early visit to the shore, and struggles to focus through all her lessons. It’s true now—really and honestly confirmed—she is friends with a selkie.

There’s something exciting about having a secret like this. It fizzes inside her just like the sherbet sweets her mother sometimes brings back after her visits to Town. She no longer cares about the stories of selkies which Takeda-sensei has told her since she can remember, or the bald facts in Mama’s big book from the top shelf. They’re wrong, all of them, and if they’d met the girl they’d know that too.

The girl just feels too…too _right_ for their friendship to be a mistake. She’s not dangerous, not at all. She’s kind, and quiet, and she never minds even when Hitoka gets carried away the following week (there’s always a week between visits, it seems) and talks for the entire time, hardly letting the girl get a word in edgeways.

Of course, Hitoka knows better than to _tell_ anyone this. She might not be scared of her friendship any more, but the thought of someone finding out…

They’d make her stop visiting, or send her away so she can’t go down to the beach anymore, or…or… Or they might even try and _hurt_ the girl to make her stop coming to the cove instead! Maybe she’d even be killed, and that would be all her fault. She, Hitoka, would be a murderer and then every night she’d dream about what had happened and the girl would become a vengeful spirit and haunt her, asking why she let it happen and—

She has several sleepless nights between visits, tossing and turning and fretting over the welfare of her friend. What if something _happens_ to her? But a week later there’s the girl once more, and all her fears are forgotten. It’s almost like magic—Hitoka can’t remember the last time she felt so confident as she does, walking along the shore with the girl and talking about so many different things she can hardly remember them all that afternoon.

The girl had said something about other selkies, she remembers that much. Cousins and friends—but never siblings, and never mention of any parents. Hitoka doesn’t ask too many questions, worried when the girl leaves out the most obvious-seeming family members that if she were to do so she might upset her friend. What if something bad happened to her parents? What if they were…if they were _hunted_ , by people or sharks, and talking about them makes the girl sad?

The ocean stays something of a mystery to Hitoka, no matter how long they walk beside it, or crouch together next to rock pools formed in dimples along the craggy shore. The girl tells Hitoka the names of things—seaweeds and crabs and minnows and shrimp; shows her how to use her fingernail to lift the stubborn barnacles from the rock and peer at the muscles which they conceal. Hitoka, in return, shows the girl how to braid her hair, giving her the black comb which had been a present from Mama last year. It has pictures of cherry blossoms painted on the back, and is shaped so that after combing, it can be used as a hair grip.

In return, a week comes when the girl is waiting by their favourite rock pool as Hitoka clambers down into the cove, and holds out a large shell, smiling broadly.

“I have a gift for _you_ this time,” the girl says, one hand reaching up to the comb which she has twisted into her hair. “I…I may not be able to return for a long while, so I wanted to say thank you for your friendship. I hope you’ll remember me.”

“O-of course!” Hitoka squeaks, but the words an automatic response and on the inside she can feel her chest stuttering, breaths laboured and short. This sounds like a goodbye—but why is the girl leaving? Did Hitoka do something wrong?

“Hitoka-chan?” the girl asks, pulling the shell back towards herself. “Are you alright?” She pauses a moment, head tilted to one side as she watches with gentle, patient eyes. Finally she sits up.

“Hitoka-chan, you know I would stay if I could, don’t you?” she asks levelly. “It’s… it’s a selkie thing. I don’t know how else to explain. I just…I _have_ to go for a while. But I won’t forget you, and—”she shuffles closer along the rock, holding out the shell once more“—I hope you won’t forget me, either.”

“Of course I won’t!” Hitoka cries, pressing her palms to either side of her face. “I couldn’t ever forget you!”

The girl smiles. “I’m so glad,” she says. “And I’ll still be your friend, even when I’m far away. I promise.”

Hitoka sits down beside the girl then, and they wait in silence together, watching the little waves in the rock pool until the tide starts to wash up against their toes.

“I should go,” the girl says, looking down at the shell in her hands. “And you have to return for your lessons, don’t you?”

Hitoka nods, biting back tears. “Will…will I ever see you again?” she asks, and with those words it’s just too much. The tears start rolling down her cheeks, accompanied by helpless sobs and hiccoughs.

The girl leans close, wrapping an arm around Hitoka’s shoulder and resting her cheek on the top of her head.

“I’ll come back,” she promises. “We’ll see each other again, I’m sure of it. And we’ll walk all along the cove together, and you can tell me more about the land, and everything you’ve done while I was away.”

She places the shell gently onto Hitoka’s lap, and it might not be right or proper but Hitoka can’t help herself—she turns and wraps her arms around the girl, hugging her tightly.

“I’m going to miss you,” she says. “I don’t have any other friends like you.”

The girl nods, and pulls away. “Me neither,” she says, and Hitoka is sure she must be imagining it but it almost looks as though the girl is trying not to cry.

 

* * *

 

She walks down to the cove a week later even though she’s fairly sure the girl won’t be there, just in case. It’s a bit lonely, walking back and forth by herself, but it’s sort of peaceful as well. The day is a cloudy one, but not too cold or wet, and she climbs up onto the rocks to get a better look out to sea. There’s a boat, out on the horizon, but nothing else.

A week more passes, and then a month, and then _more_ months, and there’s still no sign of the girl in the cove. Hitoka doesn’t give up though, because the girl promised she’d come back. She doesn’t really care how long it takes—she’ll walk up and down the beach every day for the rest of her life if she has to! Although she really hopes she _doesn’t_ have to, because really, that would make her rather a lot like the sort of people in Takeda-sensei’s big book of stories. The ones about the selkies where no one gets a happy ending and everyone sits and listens and nods their heads and makes thoughtful noises at the end as though it’s just a lesson and not _real people_ being sad for their whole lives, which is the sort of thing that leaves Hitoka trying not to sob in the corner.

She _does_ cry once or twice—at Takeda-sensei’s stories and in the safety of her room in the cottage—but Mama finds out about both, and sits her down for a long conversation about growing up.

It’s not what Hitoka was expecting, not at all.

“My dear, this has been going on for too long now. It’s past time that something changed. You’re getting to be a young lady, and this behaviour simply isn’t appropriate for either your age or your station in life.”

Well, _that_ part is exactly what Hitoka’s expecting, and she hangs her head mumbling “Sorry Mama,” with her hands clasped behind her back.

There’s a short silence, before her Mama’s had reaches over, and gently lifts her face by the chin.

“The fault is in part _mine_ , Hitoka. I have been… Well, I’ve been busy for most of your life. You’re too young to understand the way the world outside this village works, perhaps. Too young and too sheltered up until now. But our position here has been precarious at times, and I’ve worked hard to secure it. To secure an advantage for _you_ , so that you’re not doomed to exile in the same way. You have Imperial blood, my dear, and you should have an opportunity to move in the circles your birthright affords you.”

Hitoka stares at her mother. She’s not angry? Not even disappointed? It’s not quite an apology that she’s being offered, but it’s definitely not the near-scolding that she’d been expecting.

“Mama?”

“It’s time you found a place for yourself,” Yachi Madoka says, drawing herself up every bit like the Imperial woman she is. She nods briskly. “I have arranged for you to attend school in Kumanobe, now that you are getting older. It’s a far better environment than Takeda-sensei’s little group, and one in which you will learn some of the skills you will need to move in society.” She sighs. “In truth, you deserve far better.”

“S-school?” Hitoka asks, because there’s one terrible thought in all of Mama’s speech which sticks in her head even though she knows she ought to be worried about growing up and becoming a proper lady, really. “You’re sending me away?”

Mama sighs, and reaches out to take Hitoka’s hand. “Hitoka, my darling, there’s nothing for you in this little village. And while I might be officially in disgrace, there’s nothing to stop you from moving up in the world yourself. I don’t want to send you _away_ , my dear, but it will be far better for you to stay in Kumanobe while classes run. It would be far too dangerous—and too _far—_ for you to attempt to walk there and back, and I cannot afford a carriage to transport you each day. I’ve made plans for you to stay with a close friend of mine. You’ve met her once or twice before, and she has a beautiful townhouse where she lives with her husband and two sons. This will be good for you. It’s an excellent opportunity.”

Hitoka nods, and bites her bottom lip to stop it wobbling. Mama pulls her close, and Hitoka _tries_ not to cry any more, really she does, but she just can’t help it.

And she feels even more miserable for lying, and letting her Mama believe that she’s simply sad about leaving, or scared at the thought of living in Town. She _is_ sad, and she _is_ scared, but far more than either of those things she doesn’t want to leave the sea behind.

_What if the girl comes back, and I’m gone?_ she wonders, lying awake on her tearstained pillow that night. _What if she comes back, and waits and waits but I’m not there, and then she decides to stop visiting and I never see her again?_

 

* * *

 

School begins with the spring; blossom-filled cherry trees lining the dirt road from the cottage into Town. Hitoka has never left the bounds of the village before. Has never spoken to anyone but Mama, and Takeda-sensei, and the other children who attended his classes…and the girl, who has vanished somewhere into the ocean.

The night before she leaves, Hitoka sneaks out of the cottage and walks down to the cove. It’s a clear, cold night, and she’s wrapped up against the chill. The familiar rush and crash of the waves is soothing, calming her nerves before the uncertainty of the morning. Mama insisted on her having her bags packed and ready to go days earlier. She’s been rattling around in dresses she outgrew years ago.

Moonlight illuminates the rocky pools and the waves as they break on the sandy shore. She watches the sea creatures for a while: crabs and barnacles moving through the high tide to find food and shelter before the water recedes. It’s a shame the water isn’t low—it’s going to make her mission far harder—but there’s no getting round it. Besides, she has her warm bed to return to once she’s finished.

Hitoka slips off her boots, tucking her socks into them and propping them up on a ledge well above the high-water mark. She’s grown up on the coast and knows how far the water can reach, but it never hurts to be extra careful.

The cold makes her gasp as she takes her first step into the water, but it’s a calm night, and once she’s waded past the stretch of breaking waves to solid water, the depth is even enough for her to adjust. She hitches her skirts higher, wrapping the material up around her hips and tying it into a knot so that she can wade more easily.

The rocky alcove she’s aiming for is further down, knee deep through the moonlit water. It’s not the best place to leave a message—not by a long, _long_ way, but she and the girl have sat beside it a few times talking, and they’d noted the little cubby hole. It’s the best chance she has for hiding something safely so that it won’t get washed away. A storm might be too much for it, but hopefully she’ll be able to come home and check on her safe place before the autumn. Mama _promised_ that she wouldn’t have to stay in Town all year round.

She slips a little climbing up onto the shelf, and pauses a moment to marvel at what she’s actually doing. She used to be scared of the dark (she’s still scared of lots of other things), but here she is, out by herself when no one knows, and at any moment she might fall and drown, alone in the dark water.

But she won’t get another chance, really she won’t—and she hasn’t been scared of the ocean in months now. Not since she really became friends with someone who calls it home. She’s not sure if the gods of the sea will actually look out for someone who’s friends with one of their people, but it’s a nice idea.

Either way, it’s not fear but _excitement_ which she feels as she grips the rock more tightly, and scrambles up to wedge the bottle with her message into the alcove. It’s weighted down with stones, and stoppered up with a cork to keep the water out. Hitoka isn’t sure if selkies know how to read, so she’s drawn pictures on the back of the paper. She hopes the girl will understand, one way or another.

There’s no one but the moon to bear witness to her actions; how she blocks the opening of the alcove with a large, smooth stone which ought to stay put; how she slips getting off the ledge and falls into the water with a shriek; how she drags herself to her feet, shivering and with a scrape all down the back of her leg; how she marches back to the shore and wrings out as much of the seawater as she can before going in search of her footwear, stubbornly and fiercely proud of herself. She might not be much— just the daughter of a noble in disgrace, yet to learn how to be a _proper_ lady— but here in the dark of her cove, she feels for a moment like anything is possible.

She’s kept her secret for a long time now, and there’s no reason to suppose Mama will find out any more. She’s going away in the morning.

She’s leaving the ocean behind, for the first time in her life.

When morning comes, and she rinses the dried salt from her skin before getting dressed, she blames the long, rough scrape down her calf for her tears, and not sadness. When it’s time to clamber into the carriage and wave goodbye to Mama and the cottage in which she’s spent her whole life, she blames her nerves. The sight of the ocean quietly vanishing below the crest of a hill as she makes her way inland feels a lot like the end of the world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is accompanied by not one but _two_ pieces of Celadonhearth's wonderful art over on Twitter. Take a look at them [here](https://twitter.com/celadonhearth/status/1074665520841089026) and [here](https://twitter.com/celadonhearth/status/1075860368944230405)!

Hitoka has never been to the big town before, so she’s not sure what to expect until she gets there. The carriage passes by more buildings than she even thought could _exist_. How do all these people manage to live like this, right on top of each other and with no fresh air? Kumanobe _smells_ , and she’s sure that part of the problem is that all the salt has gone out of the air. Who could have imagined a world without a fresh sea breeze?

Everything is different, and loud, and by the time the carriage is admitted into a walled compound Hitoka is curled up on the seat with her hands over her head, peeping fretfully out of the window. The noise drops off just a little as they pass through the gardens which surround the house— it’s far larger than Mama’s cottage, and the gardens are trimmed and neat. Immaculate gravel paths lead here and there, and cherry trees in full bloom line a few of them, petals gently drifting down to settle where they may.

The carriage comes to a halt, and Hitoka just has time to straighten herself in her seat before a footman knocks twice and opens the door on the opposite side than she’s been watching from, announcing her presence to someone— oh gracious, it’s Mama’s friend, and now she’s going to look terribly rude and stuck up because she still has to gather up the long skirt of her smart travelling clothes, and they’re probably _waiting_ for her already—

She stops at the door of the carriage, eyes wide. It’s not just Mama’s friend who’s waiting for her— it seems most of the family has turned out, all three standing in a line and _so terribly tall!_ It’s all she can do not to trip as she shuffles forward and takes the hand of the footman who helps her down, and steadies her until she can find her balance enough to bow in greeting, and thank them for their kindness in allowing her into their home.

A woman laughs— it must be Tsukishima-san, Mama’s friend. But it’s a nice laugh, not a horrid one, and a moment later she says: “My dear, please, there’s no need to stand on ceremony. Come, it is tiring to travel. Welcome to our home.”

Hitoka straightens slowly, and hides down a gulp as she meets the woman’s eyes. “Thank you for your hospitality, Tsukishima-san,” she says. “I’m sorry for the intrusion. Please take care of me!”

The smile on Tsukishima-san’s face widens. She has a few gentle wrinkles around her eyes which soften her expression, a little like Takeda-sensei.

“I can see that dear Madoka-chan has raised you with very proper manners,” she says. “It’s quite commendable but I’ve known your mother far too long for you to be this formal with me. Please, call me Auntie.”

Hitoka stammers her agreement but honestly it’s a little daunting. She’s only just met Tsukishima-san and already she’s being far less formal than even Mama is! It’s almost a relief to turn to the rest of the family. The smaller of the two boys—who really isn’t that small at all, he’s far taller than Hitoka and Mama told her before she left that apparently they’re the same age—looks particularly uninterested in her.

His older brother seems more approachable, and when Tsukishima-san instructs the boys to welcome her and give her a tour of the house and gardens, it’s him who agrees. The younger Tsukishima follows behind, clearly thinking about something else.

“I suppose it must be quite different to what you’re used to,” Akiteru says, walking backwards to talk to her as she follows behind him. His younger brother snorts but says nothing.

Hitoka glances nervously at him. “I…yes!” she squeaks. “It’s all a bit loud, and the air smells strange—” She cuts herself off with a gasp, covering her mouth with her hands. Oh no! How could she be so rude! She’s insulted their home and their town and they must think she’s a terrible, rude guest, the worst girl ever to come and visit.

But Akiteru just laughs, and even his younger brother seems more amused than offended.

“I guess it must,” Akiteru says. “I visited the coast once. The air’s quite salty there, so if you’ve never left before it will be quite a change.”

“The town _also_ smells pretty bad,” his brother says.

Kei, his name is _Kei_ , Hitoka remembers after a moment, glad that the firm instruction from her mother has started returning to spare her the embarrassment of having to ask.

Akiteru laughs again and Hitoka relaxes ever so slightly. Kei might be one of the most intimidating people she’s ever met with his round brass spectacles and sour face, but his older brother seems friendly and relaxed, a little bit like the boys in the village that Mama always says are too rough for her to play with.

Her face falls as she thinks of the village. She’d done so well —had promised herself that she would put it out of her mind and not think about having left it, and she’s lasted all of an hour or so since the last time she’d cracked. But now she’s thinking of the sea again, of the waves crashing on the shore and the feeling of wet sand between her toes as she wades along the shoal.

“What’s wrong?” Akiteru asks.

“It’s nothing,” Hitoka says, hanging her head, but she can tell that neither brother believes her.

“Let’s take a walk through the cherry grove,” Akiteru says after a moment’s silence. “It’s the best time to see it, you know.”

Hitoka nods, and follows along. She’s tired, but not the weary kind, and after all those hours sitting cooped up in a carriage she’s glad of the chance to stretch her legs. It’s been months since she had a day without walking along the seashore, and she might not be as tall as these brothers, but it’s little trouble for her to keep up even with the long, slightly impractical dress that Mama insisted she wear to make a good impression. Not if she hitches it up a little, anyway.

The cherry blossom is beautiful, pretty enough that she has to stop a moment and take in the sight. Someone has created a path between the trees and she can’t resist going to look. It’s actually _two_ paths, she realises as she gets closer. A gentle, level stretch which would be good for old people to walk along and take in the beauty of the gardens, and a high, narrow, winding way among the rocks of an artificial hillside built up against the wall of the compound. There are small flowers growing in neat patches between the paving stones and the rocks placed to form the hillside itself. At the top of the path is a little grove area with what looks like a seat.

“You can take a look,” Akiteru offers when he sees where she’s looking. “You might want to be careful though. It’s not particularly even footing.”

Kei raises an eyebrow as she bunches the material around her waist and secures it with a loop of her sash.

“I didn’t expect you to be interested in walking around outside,” he says frankly as the three of them make their way to the top of the hillock.

Hitoka smiles, crouching down to peer at some kind of spring flower tucked into a crack between rocks. She’s never seen anything so dainty before.

“I spend a lot of time walking on the beach back—back _home_ ,” she says, wilting a little as the words fall out.

She bites her lip, trying to keep from crying. Both brothers are being so kind and patient with her; what must they think of her, constantly bursting into tears and snivelling all the time?

“It’s alright,” Akiteru says, taking charge once more. Hitoka has never really wondered what it would be like to have an older sibling before, but suddenly she thinks that Kei must be very lucky. “It’s understandable to feel a little sad. This is the first time you’ve been away from home, right?”

Hitoka nods. “I miss my beach,” she says softly.

“You have a _beach?_ ” Kei asks.

“W-well, it’s not actually _ours_ ,” she says quickly, holding her hands up in front of her and knotting her fingers together. “Mama and I just live in a cottage with a little garden. But it’s built right near the edge of the cliffs, a way out from the village, so no one ever really goes down to the cove below us except for me because it’s too far away for them. So sometimes I _pretend_ it’s mine, but that’s all, really.”

Akiteru smiles easily, and Hitoka can’t help but wonder what it must be like to feel so confident and relaxed all the time.

“It might as well be your beach, in that case,” he says, and gives Kei a gentle shove. “Isn’t that right?”

Kei pouts, looking quite grumpy about being manhandled, and adjusts his glasses. “I suppose so,” he mumbles.

The expression on his face makes him a little less intimidating and a lot more… not approachable, exactly, but awkward, perhaps. Maybe he’s not quite as tall and scary as she’d initially thought. Maybe she _can_ be okay here, in this strange house with these two very different brothers. At least for a while, anyway. Until she can go home.

 

* * *

 

It takes Hitoka a few weeks to adapt to living in the big town instead of a cottage by the sea, and long before she really feels comfortable school starts and she’s thrown straight into another strange and unfamiliar world.

She’s not the only one who has never been to school before, apparently, but at the very least most of the other students have had governesses or expensive tutors, and not just a scribe who visits now and then, and Takeda-sensei’s rather informal lessons in the village hall.

The work is interesting though, and despite her greatest fears, once she gets over how different it all is, Hitoka finds that she’s quite good at it. It turns out that learning from a real scribe who is a little bit impatient and doesn’t have time to waste means that although she has _some_ gaps, in other areas she’s actually ahead of her classmates, and ends up helping them with how to study.

If she were another girl—a more confident one perhaps, like Yamamoto Akane who is two or three years younger than her and yet strides around the school grounds as though she were born to be there—she might feel smug or brag about this. As it is, she’s just desperately relieved that she isn’t miles and miles behind them, and that she hasn’t yet managed to disappoint Mama or the scribe who taught her to read and write and do simple sums each long winter night.

Against all her expectations she even makes _friends_ , too. Not so much with Kei, although he’s noticeably more polite to her than he is with most people, but with one of Kei’s friends and some of the other children at the school. All are interested in hearing about the ocean, and admire her descriptions of the sea and the coastline.

“It’s really not _that_ far,” Hitoka says. “I…I could ask…” She falls silent. Surely if Mama wanted to have other children come and visit, she would have invited them over long ago, before Hitoka was left to grow up by herself.

She wonders, too, whether any of these children’s parents will even want them to play with her once they find out that her Mama is in disgrace. What if they decide it’s simply too shameful, and then they turn on her and ignore her and she becomes like a little ghost at the school, with everyone pointing and laughing as she walks past, and telling each other to keep away?

She tries to stop talking about the ocean, and her life in the little seaside cottage, and never breathes a word about the girl who visited her for a while even when everyone starts talking about their soul animals, asking each other if they’ve seen them yet and if so, what they are. She’s not the only one without a soul animal visiting them—and really, maybe one day she _will_ have a soul animal just like everyone else. Meeting a selkie on the beach doesn’t have to mean that she doesn’t have a soulmate, does it? Even Kei has a soul animal, and although she feels a little mean for thinking it, Hitoka can’t really imagine the tall boy falling in love with _anyone_ , not _ever_.

But apparently the gods know better, because a few days after moving to Kumanobe she actually meets it; a tiny, honestly rather cute little creature which she catches sneaking out of his room as she goes for a morning walk. It doesn’t say anything, just holds a finger to its lips and gives her a sly wink, before scurrying off into the bushes of the garden. It can’t just be chance, either, because she sees it again every few days after that, and it does the same thing each time.

Hitoka has never really thought in any kind of detail about how it works, having a soul animal visit you. Mama’s soul animal is a mystery she’s never particularly thought to ask about—or at least, if she has ever asked, it was so long ago that she can’t even remember doing it, let alone what the answer might have been. With it just being the two of them, it never occurred to her to worry, up until that day on the beach when the girl had appeared.

She doesn’t ask Kei what his soul animal actually is. It seems like a terribly rude thing to do, particularly when he hardly talks to her—not out of rudeness of course, he simply doesn’t talk to _anyone_ very much. Not even the cheerful, freckled boy who shadows him all the time at school and who Hitoka halfway suspects might actually be his soulmate up until he comes to school one day with an awed expression on his face and a story about a strange, shockingly serious creature which had appeared in his bedroom the night before and halfway scolded him, and then insisted that it had given him some good advice.

He looks a little embarrassed about it all, so rather than ask him what the creature actually said (which plenty of their other classmates do), Hitoka asks if he knows what creature it actually was.

Yamaguchi blushes even harder, and shakes his head.

“I guess that’s a little silly,” he says, smiling nervously.

“I don’t think so,” Hitoka replies, and then brightens. Here’s a chance for her to do something useful! “Why don’t we go to the library and look up soul animals?” she offers.

“You mean it?” he says, and chews on his bottom lip looking just as nervous about the whole thing as she feels. “That’s—But you don’t have to bother, really you don’t. I don’t want to be a problem, I can go and look by myself…”

Hitoka shakes her head, and tries to think of an excuse. She doesn’t want to mention the girl, really she doesn’t, but this might be her chance to really _learn_ something about selkies, and maybe find out why the girl had to go away. _And when she might come back,_ she tells herself. She refuses to admit that the girl might not.

“I…I think I saw mine, once,” she says after a minute. It’s probably true. Hitoka probably is the sort of hopelessly doomed person to have a selkie for a soulmate and never find true love, even if the girl herself is trying her best.

“Wow, really?” Yamaguchi says. “How come it was only once, though? I thought they come back.”

“Oh! It’s, uh… It’s very shy, and I don’t really know for sure, because it might just have been a mistake. I’m only young still, and back home, Takeda-sensei said that lots of people don’t even meet their soul animals until they’re all grown up,” she babbles. “Let alone their actual soulmates, so… I just wanted to look, I suppose, and see if I was right. But we don’t have a library back home.”

Kei, who is walking beside them and has remained silent the whole time, stops in his tracks. “You don’t have a _library?_ ” he asks, clearly horrified.

Hitoka shakes her head. “Mama and I live just outside the village,” she explains. “But it’s really quite small, and most of the people are too busy working to have much time to read. Or, that’s what Takeda-sensei says. Apparently the big house on the hill where the Sugawaras live has its own library, but that’s private, and I’m not a Sugawara so I would hate to be rude and ask if I could go there. I don’t really talk to any of the Sugawara children, because Mama says they might be rude, so mostly I just read the books Mama brings me back from Town sometimes, or play down on our beach by myself.”

Kei shudders. “If the country doesn’t have books, I suppose that’s one reason to put up with all the people in Kumanobe,” he says.

“You could always build a library, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says. “I’m sure if you moved to a village and made one, everyone would be really happy to have books to read.”

Kei wrinkles his nose. “Yamaguchi,” he says, “If I moved out of the town I would be getting _away_ from people. The last thing I want to do is give them a reason to bother me more.” He sighs, and adds: “If we’re going to the library we should wait until after mathematics. Otherwise we’ll just get interrupted.”

Hitoka smiles. Kei might be a little mean to people sometimes, but when it’s just the three of them—or when they’re at home, and she watches him wordlessly tolerate all of Akiteru’s teasing—she can see a better side to him, one which is much easier to like. And it really is very kind of him to go with them to the library when he doesn’t have to. After all, she reminds herself, Kei already knows what his soul animal is, and it visits him often enough that he must be quite comfortable about that. There’s no reason for him to come with them other than kindness and friendship.

He doesn’t even ask any questions when they get to the library, and Hitoka ducks away to find books on ocean-going soul animals. Yamaguchi asks what kind of creature she thinks she saw though, which is well-meaning enough and she’s _pretty_ sure he’s just trying to be polite and maybe help her track it down, but all he actually manages to do is make her panic a little bit, because she doesn’t know enough about ocean soul animals to know what kind of creature she could describe, and what if he thinks she’s just making it all up?

The last thing she wants to do is admit she’s met a selkie, because what if they don’t want to talk to her anymore after they know that she’s cursed? She’s already a little bit in disgrace from being Mama’s daughter, and being cursed on top of that just sounds like the worst possible luck, and supposing it’s catching?

She freezes. Oh no—what if it _is_ catching, and all the while she’s talking to Kei and Yamaguchi she’s risking spreading her bad luck, and then her bad luck spreads to them and to their soulmates and they all have a terrible, terrible future ahead of them?

Blinking back tears, she stammers what hopefully sounds like a good enough answer to keep both her friends quiet, and then scurries off down another aisle of books in the library. Maybe if she finds what she’s looking for she can find out if she’s bad luck or not, because surely if she’s bad luck to everyone around her she would have to go back home to Mama, and if she didn’t volunteer to do that maybe they would _send_ her home instead, and then she and Mama would be in even more disgrace, and, _oh_ , it’s just too terrible to think about, and she never should have come to school at all!

She sinks down in a corner of the library, pressing her hands to her face to hold back the tears. It’s too bad, really it is. And none of this would be happening if she were… if she were back _home_. Home in her and Mama’s little cottage; home where she knows all the rules and all the people; home where the air smells fresh and clear and she can go down to the cove and walk and walk, and maybe one day the girl will come back and be her friend.

Kei and Yamaguchi find her eventually, though she thinks they probably saw her a lot earlier and just didn’t want to say anything, because it’s not until quite a while after her muffled tears have stopped and she’s dried her eyes that they casually stroll past and Yamaguchi says: “Oh _there_ you are! I found some good books about soul animals, did you want to see?” just as though nothing happened at all.

She nods, not quite brave enough to say anything, and follows them back to a table. The books Yamaguchi found _are_ quite good, and they spend the next part of the afternoon quietly reading through, occasionally sharing something about a creature which maybe sounds a little bit like it could be Yamaguchi’s, and carefully avoiding any mention of soul animals which live in or near the water.

 

* * *

 

A year rolls around. Hitoka returns home several times—whenever there is a break in school long enough for Mama to justify sending a carriage to fetch her—but every time she checks along the cove, her hiding place on the rocks remains intact and untouched, even surviving the winter storms with only a little damage.

She gradually grows accustomed to her stretches away from the cottage. The books in Kumanobe’s library don’t offer a lot of information about selkies, but she devours every little scrap and rumour, and picks out a fairly plain soul animal a little like a crab as the one she ‘might have seen’ to answer any questions.

Soul animals, it turns out, are supposed to tell you a little about yourself and the person you are fated to be with. Wyverns, dragons, and griffins are all soul animals which represent intense love matches—usually with an element of jealousy about their partners. But where griffins are associated with those who are protective of their soulmates, wyverns suggest something more like stubbornness, and dragons represent those who treasure their love above all.

It’s fascinating, and far more intricate than anything she could have learnt from Mama or Takeda-sensei. Most relatively common soul animals have at least one book solely dedicated to theorising what draws them to the people they choose, or making rather wild and elaborate predictions about the lives of the soulmate pairs they will bring together. And while there’s not a lot of information about the people whose fates are spelt out by selkies, Hitoka manages to find some notes here and there about the creatures themselves.

In truth, all the books in the library don’t offer all that much more information than Mama’s big book at home, but they do give Hitoka a few clues here and there. The most detailed facts concern their seal pelts, and that they can be imprisoned on land by stealing them, but there are also references to their being ruled by the number seven, including a passage which mentions that they can only assume human form once every seven years.

Hitoka frowns at this. It’s clearly not true—the girl came back every week and she looked human enough then! But then, at the same time there is _something_ right about it. Once a week is every seven days after all, and when she thinks back and counts everything up, she realises that the girl came for seven weeks before saying that she had to go.

 _I should write my own book about them,_ she thinks grimly, reading a page which describes how all selkies have long fangs and webbed toes. _I don’t think anyone who met the girl could really believe that selkies are bad, and this is just_ nonsense _._

It’s frustrating, enough so that she closes the book and lets it fall onto the table again with a heavy _thump_ that jolts her friends from their studies. Kei and Tadashi both look up and stare at her, the former with an eyebrow raised, the latter with his head tipped to one side in a silent question: _Are you alright?_

Hitoka sighs. Having friends— _real_ friends, and not just children she is only allowed to talk to in lessons or at festivals—after all these years is nice, but it means a lot more work explaining herself and reassuring them that she’s okay all the time, which is a little counter-productive because sometimes, it’s having to explain herself which makes her feel nervous in the first place! And now they’re both staring at her, waiting for her to say something after the fuss she made in the quiet, quiet library where they’ve taken to studying (or, where both boys have taken to studying and carefully ignoring the fact that Hitoka spends so much of her free time researching soul animals).

“I—” she squeaks, and hangs her head.

She feels bad lying to her friends, especially after they’ve both been so patient with her as she’s learnt the rules of being a young lady in town and at school. Anyone else would have given up on her a long time ago, and she still can’t quite believe that they’re willing to spend so much time with her when really, she’s nothing special at all and her Mama _is_ still in Disgrace…

Frowning, she makes up her mind, and takes a deep breath. It’s about time she told _someone_ about the girl. She hasn’t seen her in almost two years, and a small part of her has even started to wonder if it’s possible that she just imagined the whole thing. Only the shell she still carries around with her is proof that she didn’t, and really, what if she’d tripped and hit her head on a rock and just _found_ the shell? The girl really was like an angel, appearing when Hitoka was small and shy and lonely, and making those seven weeks so much more bearable than they would have been alone.

The truth tumbles out in a rush of jumbled words and muddled sentences, and it takes her three attempts to explain it so that Kei and Tadashi actually understand what she’s trying to say. For one awful moment she’s scared they don’t believe her, and think she’s just some strange, crazy girl who’s gotten obsessed over nothing, but then Tadashi reaches out and places his hand on the table between them, and nudges Kei in the side muttering _“Tsukki,”_ and glaring at him until Kei sighs and puts his own hand out as well, muttering that there’s no need to be so _dramatic_ about it all.

Hitoka cries as she realises that they believe her, and cries even more when they both offer to help find out information. It just seems too good to be true, really it does, and then and there Hitoka swears that they are both her very best ever friends—with one obvious exception.

Tadashi laughs. “So what was she like?” he asks, leaning forward. “ _Is_ she like I mean, although I suppose she’ll have changed a lot in two years.”

If Hitoka lives for a thousand years— which seems unlikely because not even His Imperial Majesty is probably going to live a thousand years, and she’s definitely not as important as an Imperial Majesty—she will never be so talented as to be able to capture the girl on paper, in a painting, or as a sketch. She tries her best though, and Kei and Tadashi seem appropriately impressed by both the drawings and Hitoka’s accompanying explanations.

“I miss her,” she admits a few weeks later, after the latest round of studying has only turned up a rumour that there was a ‘king’ in another distant country who fell in love with a selkie long ago, and threw himself into the sea rather than live apart. “Is that odd? I only knew her for a few weeks, but she’s still the best friend I ever had.”

Kei shrugs. “You understood each other,” he says simply. “You were both lonely, and you kept each other company. It’s only natural that you’d think well of her. Especially after a long time, because you only remember the things about her that you want to.”

She’s not quite sure Kei has that right. But then, he’s been a lot more sour recently, ever since his big falling out with Akiteru, and much as Hitoka has grown to think of him as something like a surrogate brother, she’s not confident enough to tell him that he’s wrong. Especially when she can’t even explain why to herself.

 

* * *

 

School, according to her Mama, is the best thing that has ever happened to her. Hitoka isn’t quite sure about how true that is, but she’s never been much good at disagreeing with people and she doesn’t want to disappoint her mother by telling her that the only good thing about going away was that she got to befriend Kei and Tadashi—or rather, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi again, now that she’s older and it’s stopped being so proper for her to use their given names.

That’s one of the many rules about living in town which she can’t bring herself to agree with in her heart, like the idea that even though she’s spent the better part of her life living by the ocean and wading barefoot through the water or climbing rocks to peek at crustaceans, it would be improper for her to walk anywhere in Kumanobe outside a walled compound due to fears for her safety. In the longest stretches of school-time between her visits home, she’s convinced she’ll go crazy from looking at walls all the time and never feeling free.

She wants to go _home_. Despite how often Mama tells her that she’ll grow fond of the town, with all its strange smells and rules, she can’t ever shift her love for their little cottage on the promontory, and the peaceful cove nestled below. Each time the carriage is sent to bring her back she sits impatiently in her seat, leaning forward and straining for the first glimpse of the ocean, and fidgeting uneasily until they finally come to a halt and she can fly free.

Hitoka grows taller as the seasons pass, but not an awful lot. And never so much that she can’t clamber with ease onto the little rocky shelf and reach into the gap where her message has been stowed all this time; waiting, just _waiting_ for the girl to keep her promise and return.

After a few years of school, she finally works up the courage to tell Mama that she doesn’t want to go back. That she’s content to live in Disgrace if it means she can be back in the cottage with Mama and the the cook and the maid who comes to clean, and the ocean right below them and the salty air to fill her lungs and make her feel free.

She stands firm as she gives her speech, all the while expecting Mama to be so disappointed, or cross, or to send her away to an even _further_ school to get it ‘out of her system’ the way she’d suggested when Hitoka was younger. She’s not entirely sure what to do with herself when her Mama simply smiles sadly, and beckons her close so that she can hold her tightly in her arms

“Oh, my daughter,” she says. “You may not see it now, but that school has been the making of you.” She pauses for a moment, and pulls back to look Hitoka in the eyes as she adds: “I remember a small girl drifting about the place like a timid ghost, quiet and unsure. I worried that you would never have the will to live your own life. If sending you away all these years has given you the direction to choose, then it’s been worth every minute.”

 

* * *

 

Life changes again. Being back home is good, but it’s also rather lonely. With no more school to while away the hours, Hitoka returns to her walks along the cove, mapping and re-mapping every rock, every contour until the entire beach makes a solid picture in her mind. She wakes before dawn most days, and no matter how many mornings the shore is empty, is no less eager in her routine.

One day the girl will come back, she’s sure of it. She _promised_.

But even so, she never quite promised when that would be. More than once Hitoka loses herself in fears that the girl already came back and left again, long ago while Hitoka was at school and simply never saw the letter which had been left as an explanation. Hitoka had rewritten and updated it a few times, but those were the only disturbances. There’s a chance—a real, terrifying chance— that the girl will never come back again because she thinks Hitoka doesn’t care.

Still, as the years have rolled slowly and steadily around, Hitoka has never forgotten the thing about sevens. In the back of her mind, even past the constant whirlwind of doubts and fears, she can’t help but hope that her guess is correct, and in the spring following her sixteenth birthday she watches out with renewed keenness.

Weeks pass. Slowly the spring flowers in the garden bloom, and the icy bite in the morning air fades to a crisp, fresh coolness.

She wakes, one blustery, misty morning, and sees movement down along the rocky shore.

 

* * *

 

Hitoka is dressed in five minutes flat; hair still a mess of tangles, clothes crooked and rumpled. She doesn’t stop to fasten the laces on her boots, doesn’t stop to wonder whether she should bring a gift. Such is her haste that she almost trips as she makes her way along the path, narrowly avoiding a short, painful end on the rocky crags which surround the narrow walkway down to the sandy cove.

There’s no way to see if it’s the girl as she gets closer. The air is thick with mist and salt spray _anyway_ , and the rocks guarding the shoreline block her view. It’s not until she’s picked her way down onto the flat of the beach that she can pick up speed again, half tripping over her laces and too excited to care, because it is her, it is the girl! She’s back after all these years away, and—

Hitoka stops dead because _oh no,_ she’s somehow—impossibly—even _more_ beautiful than she was before.

 _It’s been seven years,_ her brain reminds her as she’s stood fixed in place, gaping because she’s always known how beautiful the girl is—always known that by comparison she’s like an imitation made of sticks and mud and straw—but her memory has been kind to her and the years have changed the girl entirely.

It’s not fair to call her a porcelain-doll girl anymore because that was when they were children, and okay so Hitoka is sort of a child still in a lot of people’s eyes, but the girl is so much taller and older, and she’s more like like a statue carved from marble or jade. Perfect and immaculate and otherworldly, with hair that whips artfully about her face just as an artist might draw a beautiful woman in a silk painting, and it takes Hitoka a moment to realise that the girl’s sealskin is tied around her waist with the same sash Hitoka had almost forgotten, or that she has her hair tucked back by a small dark comb painted with cherry blossom.

There’s no sign of the sandals, but to be fair they have both grown so much that they would be helplessly small after all this time. She wonders what has happened to them, all the same.

For a long while—it seems like forever, although probably it’s only _actually_ a few seconds or a minute or something—they just stare at each other. Then the girl takes a step forward, slow and somehow _nervous_ , and that’s enough to break Hitoka completely because even after all this time, even though she looks impossibly like an angel that stepped right out of a story, she’s still _the girl_ , and she’s still Hitoka’s oldest friend, and Hitoka can’t help herself practically flying across the sand towards her, reaching out her arms and stopping halfway to kick off her boots and run barefoot through the sand.

Her heart fills as the girl smiles and holds out her _own_ arms, and they meet with clasped hands and a dance across the shore, cold water lapping at their toes as they leave spiral tracks across the beach. The sun has risen fully by the time they stop, out of breath but laughing all the same. Around them, the mist is burning away and in a few hours it might even be a nice day except for the wind.

Hitoka doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about the sun or the sky, or the waves which lap around her ankles as she leans forward and hugs her friend as tightly as she dares, relaxing only when the girl’s warm, pale arms wrap around her in return.

“I missed you,” she mumbles into the girl’s shoulder, trying and failing to hold back tears. “You were gone for so _long_ ,”

She’s getting the girl’s shoulder wet, but it’s sort of hard not to because while the sealskin is quite large, it only really goes around the girl’s body when it’s wrapped and tied in place, and there’s so much _more_ of the girl than there used to be. She’s always been taller than Hitoka but now Hitoka only reaches a little bit above her shoulder, which is apparently the perfect height to sob onto her pale skin and dark, glossy hair.

“I missed you too,” the girl says, tipping her head a little so it rests on Hitoka’s. Her voice is lower than it was before, but still just as soft and musical and perfect, and Hitoka tries not to snivel with relief. “You look different.”

Hitoka stiffens, and pulls away, stomach knotting with familiar anxiety. “Different?” she asks. Is that a problem? Does the girl think she’s ugly? What if she’s changed her mind about being friends and doesn’t want to see her any more? Has she does something wrong? Oh no, what if the girl is offended by Hitoka more or less _throwing_ herself at her after all this time and is just trying to be polite because it really would be the most dreadful manners if she were to simply tell Hitoka to go away—

“Ah,” the girl says. “This is an expression I remember. It’s okay, Hitoka-chan, please don’t worry. You…grew up, that’s all. We both have.”

Hitoka swallows. “I…I guess we did,” she says, and manages the smallest smile. Suddenly she can’t think what to say or do next, and that’s silly, isn’t it? They were such good friends before— running and playing in the sand and the waves, and she’d never quite forgotten how beautiful and perfect the girl was, but the weight of it had never felt so heavy before. The sheer scale of the difference between the two of them is overwhelming. She’s stumbling and shy again, in a way she doesn’t know how to cope with.

They don’t say much really, just walk up and down the beach together. Hitoka shows her the hiding place in the rocks where she’d placed a letter— last updated more than a year ago now. They pull out the bottle, and spread the paper out across the sand just above the high tide mark. Hitoka spends the morning showing the girl how to read the symbols which make up the words.

It’s peaceful, and it’s perfect. The wind is a little chilly, still, but as the morning passes Hitoka forgets the chill and her nerves, sinking into her explanation of writing, and the way characters can be put together to make different words. She forgets her nerves, forgets the last seven years. It’s like travelling back in time, picking up exactly where they left off, and she scarcely notices how long she’s been down in the cover until her stomach makes a particularly loud rumbling sound.

The girl laughs. “I think you’d best go in search of some food,” she says, smiling and sitting up straighter. She turns and stares out to sea. “I should probably return to the water as well.”

Hitoka swallows heavily. “Will… will you be back?” she asks.

“Of course!” the girl says. “I’ll see you soon, Hitoka-chan.” She leans down and wraps her arms around Hitoka, pulling her into a hug before letting go and walking into the water.

Hitoka watches her go, wondering if she’ll see her change shape, but the girl doesn’t loosen the sash around her waist as she wades deeper and deeper into the water, and before she gets so deep as she has to swim, a voice echoes down from the top of the cliff:

“Hitoka! You should come inside now.”

By the time Hitoka looks back after calling up to Mama that she will, the girl has vanished.

 

* * *

 

The walk back up the cliff is beyond nerve-wracking. Her stomach churns and lurches with every step, and she grows increasingly light-headed the closer she gets to the cottage again. Mama must have seen the girl—she was still in plain sight after all, so there’s no possible way to get out of telling the truth this time. What will happen next? Will she be sent away? Will she be locked inside for weeks and weeks until the girl stops coming, and never be allowed onto the beach again? Will Mama get angry or cry from disappointment? She’s already let her down by not wanting to live a grand life in town or go and find a suitor, so what will she say now she’s found out that Hitoka has been disobeying her all this time and talking to a selkie on the beach?

Mama doesn’t say anything as they go inside, and they eat in silence in what feels like the longest meal in the whole entire world. Hitoka can barely manage anything—she seems to have left her appetite behind on the beach somewhere. It’s not until they’re finished eating and the maid has come in to clear away the last of the plates that her mother takes a deep breath and straightens in her seat. Hitoka can feel herself shrinking, feel her soul leave her body—

“Was that her? The selkie?”

Hitoka nods, terror rendering her speechless for the time being. She hangs her head.

“Mama, I—”

“Hitoka, my darling, I want the best for you. It has been my sole ambition these last years. I was dealt an…immeasurable blow, in my disgrace, and I have long been conscious of the disservice that this has done you. By rights, you should have grown up in luxury, not this cottage with its bare minimum of servants and no social functions for you to attend. The punishment dealt out to me alone has been handed down to you as well. I wanted you to strive against it. To prove your own worth, and forge a future in which you could be _comfortable_. For you to have a contentment with your life which, I confess, I cannot find in this place.”

“Mama?” Hitoka asks, thrown off by this speech. It’s not what she expected at _all_.

For the briefest of moments, Yachi Madoka looks sad and wistful, sighing and reaching across the table to take Hitoka’s hand.

“ _Contentment_ , Hitoka. Real happiness. Not just a fleeting comfort or thrill— something you can be confident will last you. You’re still so young. Too young to throw away a future on a whim, and yet the choices you make now will decide your future for you. If you choose not to return to Kumanobe that is an almost permanent decision. You will fall out of fashion, and make it infinitely harder to return in future with any kind of stature.”

She pauses a moment, squeezing Hitoka’s hand gently. “So be sure you have thought your decision through. Consider every angle, every consequence. Be sure that you are staying because you enjoy what you _have_ , not what you dream of.”

Hitoka’s heart leapt. She stuttered, eyes widening and her back lurching to ramrod straightness.

“Mama…y-you mean—”

“I mean, my darling, that you have been _educated_. You are perfectly aware of the dangers of cavorting with shapeshifters from the ocean, and I trust you will have better sense than to break the rules that will keep you safe. I’m no fool, Hitoka. I can see you have formed a friendship with a selkie, and I can see that, thus far, you remain intact in both body and heart. But you must give serious thought as to what such a friendship can really provide, now or in the future. Is it really worth sacrificing the other roads open to you? I supported your decision to leave school, but if you elected to remain here in the hope that a selkie would sacrifice her life in the ocean for your companionship, I fear you are simply setting yourself up for bitter disappointment.”

“I—”

“ _T_ _hink_ about it. Really think. This isn’t a decision you can take back, Hitoka. Make sure it’s the right one.”

 

* * *

 

Hitoka is sure a week has never felt so long. The days inch by, hour by hour, and she lies awake in bed at night, tossing and turning as the weight of her mother’s words press upon her. What _does_ she want from life? Is she going to change her mind as she gets older and actually want to go back to Kumanobe and its hustle and bustle? She doesn’t _think_ so, but Mama is so much older and wiser than her, and surely if anyone ought to know, it’s her mother.

A storm rolls through the village in the middle of the week, throwing its worst at the cottage and the cliffside. It’s the worst of the season, whipping up the waves enough that Hitoka stares out of the window and wonders if they will reach up and pluck the cottage from its foundations, pulling them to their doom at the bottom of the cliff. The wind howls and moans in the eaves, and rattles the precious panes of glass which Mama had shipped in from Town when she fled the capital in Disgrace.

She huddles close beside Mama throughout the worst of it, but when the morning arrives and the storm has blown itself out, it’s worth all the trouble because the sky is every bit as clear as if it were in a painting. The ocean stretches out as far as they eye can see, twinkling blue with little white caps on the waves, and Hitoka realises she has her answer; that she had it all along.

The good weather holds, and on the seventh morning Hitoka hardly even stops to check whether the girl is waiting for her before throwing on her clothes and gathering everything she had put ready for the day.

She darts out of the cottage and makes her way down the steep path to the shore where the girl is waiting for her, and it might have been the longest week in the whole entire world but it’s _worth_ it to see the smile on her friend’s face as she approaches.

“You’re back!” Hitoka cries, which is a little unnecessary now she comes to think of it, and that’s almost enough to set her worrying because they already talked about this on the girl’s last visit didn’t they, and the girl had said then that she would come back, so what if it looks as though Hitoka simply didn’t trust her, and now she’s _offended_ the girl?

“I brought you a gift!” she blurts out before the girl can say anything, hoping that it will be a good enough peace offering. “You…you got too big for those old sandals I gave you I think, so brought some bigger ones. That way it will be easier to climb on the rocks like we did before.”

The girl smiles, her face lighting up into pure, honest perfection which steals Hitoka’s breath right out of her chest without her even realising it at first. She doesn’t register the girl talking until it’s too late and the words have already passed by, unheard.

Blinking, Hitoka emerges from her daze. “Uhh…”

The girl holds out her hand. “Sit with me?” she asks, smiling softly, and Hitoka just nods because it’s not as though she could refuse, even if she feels like it’s her first day at the school in Kumanobe again, and there’s a whole crowd of people all watching her and waiting for her to do something wrong so that they can remember it forever and ever. How did she manage to act so calmly last week? How didn’t she end up such a constant blushing mess that the girl actually _noticed?_

They find a comfy spot in one of their old haunts, and it’s a bit more of a squeeze than it used to be but somehow they both still fit, feet tucked beneath them and hands trailing in a little pool of sea water cut off by the tide. Hitoka can feel her heart hammering away in her chest as though it’s about to explode, because they might have walked and danced before, but the last time they’d both sat by this rock pool there had been a lot more space, a lot more room for her to be calm and collected and keep her awe to herself instead of letting it spill over into blushes and panic.

“I was gone a long time,” the girl says as they watch a crab pick at some strands of seaweed. “Not this last week of course, but before. It’s… _different_ in the water. There aren’t any ‘seasons’ in the way you described the land having. We count the cycles of the moon, the same as you, but our main focus is the changing currents. The fish migrate, and we count time by the passing shoals, and I had never much thought about the land before I met you, but I’ve thought about it a lot, this last few years. Too much, perhaps. I needed to be in the water to grow, but it was…odd. I felt cut off from something, when I’d always been at home there before our meetings on the beach here.”

Hitoka swallows, and pushes down her strange nervousness at being _this_ close to the girl, at feeling the warmth of her body press against her side. They stay silent for a few minutes and she wonders why, a little. Has the girl finished? Is she waiting for Hitoka to reply? What can she _say?_

“I went to school while you were away,” she manages at last, hoping she doesn’t sound too abrupt. “Not— not like Takeda-sensei’s school in the village. A big one, away in the town that Mama visits sometimes. I learnt a lot, I think, but it wasn’t easy. And the air! There were so many people you could _smell_ them, and there’s no salt to make the air fresh. I made some friends which made it better, even though I couldn’t see the ocean for the longest time. But I got to come home sometimes, and I—” she swallows again, screwing her eyes up to give her the courage to say it because she still can’t quite believe she stood in front of Mama and said those words— “I told Mama I didn’t want to go back there anymore.”

She knows the girl won’t understand why it’s such a big deal. They don’t have schools in the ocean, not the way that exist on land, and the girl has never mentioned even _having_ a Mama to disobey or possibly disappoint.

But she acts like she understands, nodding seriously as she listens, and gazing out to see with a thoughtful expression on her face.

“You wanted to stay near the ocean,” the girl says, and it’s a little like a question but at the same time it’s not, not at all, because they both already know it’s just the truth.

“Well,” Hitoka says, and she feels ever so silly saying it but if they’re going to be friends just like they were before she knows she needs to be able to talk just as comfortably as they did all those years ago. “It didn’t feel right being so far away. I think I’m happier here. I feel like I’m free to be who I want to be.”

The girl smiles, and looks down at her. She has the oddest expression on her face, somehow a mixture of happiness and sadness all in one.

“I can understand that,” she says. “Freedom is… I think that’s what everyone wants, deep down.”

HItoka frowns. Is the girl _not_ free? Who would try to stop someone so wonderful from doing whatever they wanted, from being _happy?_

“There are lots of rules, in the ocean,” the girl goes on. “Or, traditions which we follow as if they were rules, to keep us safe. I didn’t understand all of them when I was younger, but I think I do, now. Sometimes it isn’t easy doing the right thing. But I want to. I want to do the right thing for _everyone_.”

“What do you mean?” Hitoka asks.

The girl sighs. “I feel as though I want to come back here all the time,” she says frankly. “I missed you while I was with my people. I missed having you as my friend, and the conversations we had. It was _interesting_ learning about the land, and telling you things about the ocean, but… I can’t stay forever. I can only come back a few more times before I have to stay away again. It will be the same as before.”

“Seven times,” Hitoka says, thinking about the big book at the Kumanobe library. “You can visit seven times, and then it’s seven years away, right? I learnt that at school.”

The girl nods. “I love being your friend, Hitoka-chan, but I can’t stop being what I am. And I don’t want to ask you to keep waiting for me to come back. It wouldn’t be the right thing to do, not when there’s a whole life for you on the land, away from your cottage.”

“I don’t mind!” Hitoka says. “There’s… I can do lots, here in the village. Mama only wanted me to go away so that I had a choice. She knows I belong here, and not in some…some grand palace where everyone else is so big, and tall, and did you know they wear these _enormous_ hats! I thought it was just in the woodcuts, people making it up, but I saw them with my own eyes! We were just walking around the school and a grand carriage pulled up and they stepped out, dressed all in silk with these great silly hats on their heads, and sleeves all trailing down and honestly the ladies looked ever so beautiful, but all I could think about was what if one of them tripped on those long skirts, or her clog got caught between some of the cobblestones and she fell, and broke her ankle, or tore her pretty clothes, because I know if it were me I’d just be terrified all the time.”

“I’m sure you’d be okay, Hitoka-chan,” the girl says with a gentle, perfect smile. “You and I have climbed most of these rocks together, after all. You should give yourself more credit. You could fit anywhere you put your mind to, I’m certain of it.”

 _I fit here_ , Hitoka’s traitor brain tells her, which would have been a perfectly fine thing to think if she weren’t trying to recover from the gentle crinkle around the girl’s eyes as she speaks, or the little dimple which forms on her cheek, just a little way above her beauty spot.

Hitoka _definitely_ doesn’t fit here. She might dream of it, but surely there’s no place for someone as plain and ordinary as herself beside such an evident embodiment of perfection and beauty itself.

Rather than say such a thing— those words are far too grand for someone as small and hopelessly outclassed as herself—she simply sighs, and looks down at where their hands trail near each other in the water.

“I talked to Mama about that,” Hitoka says eventually, when she’s sure the girl has nothing more to say. “About _you_ , a little. I guess we were both thinking about the future a lot, huh!”

She takes a deep breath, willing herself to have the strength to say at least a _part_ of what she wants to. “I decided I don’t care,” she says, and it’s a dizzying thing to say, to get the words out into the open where they can be heard, and aren’t just ideas tucked up in her head for safety. “I decided I _want_ to stay here, and—and I don’t care if I only get to see you every seven years! This is where I belong _all_ the time, and I’m happy, really I am! I know all the people in the village—sort of, anyway—and I can make plenty of friends if I need to, and it’s quiet just like me, and I don’t want to be in the town with a fancy dress and a carriage to take me everywhere, and rules telling me who I can talk to and what I can call them when I could have all… all _this_ instead! It’s worth it, to me, if I get to keep being your friend, just like we are now.”

The girl doesn’t say anything for a long, long while. Not as the tide pulls its way out to its lowest point, stirring up the sand and the seaweed into underwater clouds in the distance; not as it lingers there for what feels like an hour or more before it begins its imperceptible march up the shore once again; not as the clouds billow overhead, blooming into what will be a shady afternoon.

They’ve been sat in silence together for so long that when the girl _does_ move, Hitoka almost jumps out of her skin with surprise, because the girl reaches over and takes Hitoka’s hand.

“I’m glad,” she says softly. “My family… my _people_ are wary of humans. I didn’t really believe you were as our stories said, but I confess that I worried, just a little. I’m glad I can return and tell them that they’re wrong.”

Hitoka feels as though time has stopped. With her hand in the girl’s it’s as though she can hardly breathe. It seems impossible that someone so marvellous could be so affected by a friendship with _her_ , with someone as small and ordinary as herself, but that’s what the girl is saying, with her words and the expression in her eyes.

“I’m glad too,” Hitoka says, the words slipping out of her mouth as a gentle sigh.

 

* * *

 

The weeks pass too quickly. Hitoka can’t help but count them, mourning every evening’s goodbye as though it were their last. And finally the last week _does_ arrive, and they meet in silence. Hitoka’s stomach churns the entire morning as they walk up and down the shore, skimming stones and talking about their respective lives; the people they know; animals and plants—anything other than the looming deadline which will force them apart for so long once again.

The girl looks exactly like a painting in one of Mama’s books as she walks beside Hitoka, an illustration of a perfect woman with her long black hair swept back over her shoulders and pinned above one ear, with the new shawl Hitoka brought her wrapped about her shoulders to keep off the chill of a windy day.

Hitoka even thought ahead and packed up her lunch the evening before, and they sit and eat together, perched up on a rock beyond the churning high tide.

“I’ll miss this,” the girl says simply.

Hitoka nods, looking down at her hands a moment before risking a glance at the girl. To her surprise, she’s not staring out at sea the way Hitoka would expect, but down at _her_ , watching her with a sad, wistful expression on her face.

“The ocean is… There’s nothing like the feel of moving through the water,” she goes on. “But _this—_ sitting here with you, in this shape… It feels right, too. I wish I could come back sooner.” She reaches into the wrap of her sealskin, down where Hitoka’s first gift to her still holds it easily in place, and pulls something out: a bundle wrapped up in seaweed.

“F-for me?” Hitoka asks, which is silly because even as she says the words the girl is pressing it into her hands with a shy smile, and oh goodness, she’s _blushing_ , Hitoka can’t quite believe it.

“I want you to have it, yes,” she says. “To wear, if you want to, and remember me while I’m away. I have so much of the land to carry with me. I wanted you to have something of the sea.”

Hitoka unwraps the parcel gently, folding back the leaves and gasping as she sees what’s nestled inside: a necklace made of iridescent shells, and twine, woven so that the largest shell hangs in the centre with smaller fragments on either side.

“It’s…it’s _beautiful_ ,” she says.

The girl smiles wryly. “It’s nothing so grand as the gowns you described, or the shawl you gave me,” she says. “But I wanted— We don’t give gifts, often. In the ocean we have little need of them. But you’re not of the ocean. You’re not bound by the same rules, the same laws. And you are important, Hitoka-chan.”

Hitoka blushes, and hangs her head. “I’m just _me_ ,” she says.

The girl laughs. “Yes,” she says simply. “And you are my friend, and you’ve earned my trust. Not many humans could do that. And, I think, I want to trust you with something else before I go.”

Hitoka bites her bottom lip to stop it trembling _. Go?_ She doesn’t want the girl to talk about leaving, not when there are still so many hours of daylight left; so much time they could still spend together.

“Hitoka-chan, when we first met you asked my name. I hadn’t been entrusted with it at that time—I was too young. But I am older now. Grown enough to be trusted with it and sure of myself, and this last few weeks have proven what I knew in my heart all those years ago. You’re a good person, Hitoka-chan. I trust you. Enough that I want to share my name with you.”

Hitoka gasps. “Oh! Oh _no!_ ” she cries, clutching the girl’s hand. “That feels too much like a goodbye, and…and I _couldn’t!_ You said it was important you kept it safe—that it was _dangerous_ for people to know what it was, and I’m just—”

“You are not ‘just’,” the girl says. “You are Yachi Hitoka, daughter of Yachi Madoka, born of Imperial blood—and friend to Shimizu Kiyoko from beneath the ocean waves.”

There’s no possible way for Hitoka to hold back her tears now. She chokes down a sob as the girl wraps her arms around her shoulders, hardly daring to hug her back. It’s too bad, it’s _too bad._ Why do they have to be apart for so long? Why does the world have to be so unfair to them?

How has she possibly earnt such an honour, too? To be trusted so much—it’s more than she could ever have asked, more than she knows what to _do_ with.

“I—I promise I’ll keep your name safe!” she sobs. “I’ll never tell anyone, I swear on Mama’s life! On _my_ life!”

“Sharing my family name would be alright,” Shimizu says gently, rubbing her back soothingly. “If it were only to a few people you trusted. People would have to know my given name as well for it to be _truly_ a problem. And as I said, I trust you, Hitoka-chan. I feel safe sharing my name, as it’s with you.”

The words stick fast in Hitoka’s head, and although she knows the next seven years are going to be hard, and lonely, and long, she’s equally certain about her decision to remain. It will be worth it all, to see Shimizu again someday.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took a lot longer to post than planned thanks to holiday Shenanigans. I do apologise for the delay. I had all of this (and still have the other chapters) already written, so I can really only blame the absence of any free time to format and post it. Unfortunately, school holidays are always horrendously busy for me, particularly when my children are hyped up on sweets and present exchanges. At least the most excitement-inducing stage is over now!

Seven years is a long time.

It’s not that the knowledge of this is something _new_ , exactly, but the difference between the gap stretching ahead of her and the gap she’d had as a little girl is that she knows how long it will be from the start now. Before, she’d only known that someday, the girl would come back. Each month had been filled with: “Is it now?” rather than an enormous tally which she could only tick one slow number off of at a time.

There’s no school, either, to lure her away from the shoreline and fill her lonely months with education and new friends. Writing to Tsukishima and Yamaguchi helps to pass the time a _little_ , but it’s not the same as being there, not even a little.

Nor does she want to go _back_ , though. As hard as it is, knowing that she has to wait, the thought of being away from home and the fresh salt breeze is even worse. At least here, in her cottage by the sea, she can look out upon the waves and know that the girl—that _Shimizu—_ is out there somewhere, swimming freely beneath the surface.

She wonders, sometimes, where Shimizu’s travels take her. What it’s like to take on seal form and swim for hour upon hour. Whether selkies play and jostle each other like the full seals on the rocks further out to sea. Wonders what Shimizu _looks_ like as a seal, and if her clear, peaceful grey eyes change at all in their other shape. She’s never seen a real life seal up close before—the shoreline around the cottage doesn’t have any, although she knows they come up onto the beaches further along the coast from time to time. The fishermen in the village sing songs about them, about how they’re really sailors lost to storms at sea, reborn and given a second chance at life.

Shimizu had never said anything about that, though, and Hitoka feels as though she ought to know better, being partway a seal herself.

The first few months are definitely the hardest, while she adjusts to what her life will _really_ be like on her own. Mama frets and fusses for a time, half-heartedly suggesting that she visit Kumanobe and refresh her connections there, but Hitoka can’t bring herself to leave the ocean again. She passes the hours wandering the shore, taking a folder of paper and an easel with her, and painting seascapes on fine days.

On rougher ones, she ventures out more cautiously, but it fast becomes a habit for her to wander down to the beach in all but the most dangerous weather. If the ocean is where Shimizu is, she wants to keep a connection to it. Besides, selkies don’t have houses, do they? Shimizu—and now and then she still finds herself marvelling at the fact she can _call_ her that, that she can even tell her Mama what part of her friend’s name is—Shimizu never mentioned selkies having houses to shelter in. For all she knows, they live out on the rocks the same as ordinary seals do, braving all the weather.

She’s not _un_ happy though. Aside from the gentle, persistent ache of loneliness she gets on quite fine—it’s fun to paint, and it’s satisfying to walk and walk and feel her legs getting stronger all the time. Whenever Mama needs something from the village she offers to go—partly to reassure her mother that she can still do ordinary things, and that she isn’t wallowing in isolation, and partly because they really are quite nice people, even if they’re not so grand as the inhabitants of Kumanobe.

Hitoka worries what they think of her though, the girl from up on the promontory who’s had every bit as thorough an education as the Sugawara family offer their own children, but who shunned a life in the town where she could make the most of it. She frets that most people will think her stuck up, and that, conversely, the Sugawaras will think her family background too shameful.

It’s something of a surprise, therefore, when her morning walks start taking her beyond her peaceful cove and she spots their youngest son standing on a rock in the middle of the next bay, soaking wet with his arms reaching up into the sky. She stares, open-mouthed, as he calls out to something she can’t see and then dives into the water, swimming confidently to something…

Oh. _Oh_.

Hitoka blushes, and scurries away, feeling dreadfully embarrassed; as though she’s walked in on something deeply private and intimate. She’d never stopped to consider that in a village by the sea, there were bound to be people whose soul animals were ocean-going creatures, but that’s certainly true of Sugawara-san from what she’s just seen. She remembers her studies in the Kumanobe library enough to recognise a hippocampus when she sees one.

It’s a few more weeks before she sees Sugawara-san again, partly because she decides to venture in the opposite direction of the village in her wanderings for a while. Knowing that she might run across him isn’t as terrifying a prospect as she’s sure it would have been if she had been a few years younger, but he’s still from a good family, in equally good standing with His Imperial Majesty, and besides, she knows that meetings with soul animals are very personal affairs and doesn’t want to intrude. It’s just good manners, surely!

She tires of the southern walk after a while though. Past her cove there are really only one or two more which she can clamber down into before the cliffs get too steep and treacherous, and it’s just not the same walking along the top of them instead of down by the surf, with the waves washing over her bare toes.

Luck seems to be on her side the second time she meets him. The high tide came early, and is on its way out when she sets off with her pack of art things and a warm bento slung on her back. She meets him as he wades out of the retreating water, dripping wet but beaming all the same despite the lingering traces of a chill in the morning air.

“Hello, Yachi-chan!” he calls, waving cheerfully. He shakes himself off as he leaves the water and strides across the short beach to a pile of fabric perched on a rock. After drying his hands and face he walks over, letting the towel drape across his shoulders a little like a cloak.

“You’re out early today!” he says. “I think I’ve seen you walking once or twice, or painting the view, but it was always later on, and I didn’t like to disturb you.”

“O-ohhh,” Hitoka says, looking down. “Yes, er I… I like to keep active!”

He smiles. “You’re down on the coast a lot though, particularly for a young lady. Are you like me?”

Hitoka’s mind whites out in panic. Like _Sugawara-san?_ What can he possibly mean by that? Mama isn’t really wealthy the way the Sugawaras are with their grand house up on the hill behind the village, and she’s definitely not as outgoing as Sugawara-san himself is, or confident enough to have charmed half the village according to what the cook and the housemaid say as they gossip in the kitchen—

“Is your soul animal an ocean-type as well?” he asks, apparently taking mercy upon her.

“Oh— Well, not exa… I mean, uh, yes!” Hitoka splutters, panicking anew as she realises she can’t possibly tell Sugawara-san the truth about her situation, or, more importantly, about _Shimizu_.

He grins. “Not sure if you’ve seen it yet, then?” he asks, and she seizes the opportunity with both hands.

“That’s right!” she squeaks, feeling guilty about the lie but grateful that she has something to fall back on.

“You shouldn’t worry,” he says, sitting down on a rock and patting a level stretch beside him gently. “And there’s no need to fret— I won’t bite! I just mean… I understand what it’s like, not knowing.”

Hitoka chews the inside of her lip a little, but sits down beside him despite her misgivings. It’s not really proper, but Sugawara-san doesn’t seem to mind, and it’s nice to sit and talk to someone other than Mama or the servants again. It’s been a while since she ventured into the village, and even then she’s normally too shy to talk to anyone anymore.

“I met my soul animal quite a long time ago now,” he goes on, gazing off into the horizon with a wistful expression on his face. “But I didn’t meet my actual soulmate until more recently, and I know a lot of people who _still_ haven’t met theirs. Daichi—you probably know him better as Sawamura—still hasn’t even met his soul animal, and he’s the same age as me, you know.”

Hitoka’s eyes widen. “Really?” she asks, leaning back a little. Surely Sugawara-san can’t be serious. “But I thought… I mean, most people at least meet their soul _animal_ before that.”

Sugawara smiles wryly. “That’s true enough,” he says. “But everyone is different. No one _really_ understands soul animals I think. Not as a whole. They’re pretty mysterious, even if we know why they exist and how they help us. The gods like to keep a few secrets I suppose, so that we don’t get too complacent.”

Hitoka nods. She’s never really been able to understand why she met Shimizu instead of having a regular soul animal—why she’s been cursed with not _having_ a soulmate at all, just occasional visits to remind her what she’s missing out on. Cursed with not even being able to talk about her for fear of being shunned, or of putting Shimizu at risk. There’s a sort of peace in putting it down to the gods, she supposes, if nothing else.

“Some secrets are hard, though,” she finds herself saying before she even realises the words are falling out of her head. The moment she realises her mistake she gasps, and clasps her hands over her mouth. “I mean—”

Sugawara laughs. “Well you’re right there, too!” he says cheerfully. He watches her face a moment, smile settling into his face as though he were born with it. She thinks he probably was. “I was worried what my parents would say when I met my soul animal for the first time,” he goes on. “It’s not really an animal which would do me a lot of good in most nobles’ eyes. I’m a younger son—I was meant to go off to university and study and make something of myself, seeing as my brother’s going to inherit the estate. Instead I’m bound to the ocean—the same as you, it seems. I thought they’d be disappointed, or tell me to put off meeting with it until I was done with my studies.”

He shrugs, and glances down at her with what she suddenly realises is an awfully penetrating expression, like he’s reading her mind or something. Hitoka can hardly believe this is the same happy-go-lucky person the servants gossip about, whispering between themselves at length that he’s lazy and frivolous and a bit of a waste of time.

“I told them in the end, of course,” he says, leaning forward and propping his chin on the knuckles of his right hand. “They got me a tutor instead, and let me stay so that I could be with it, and stand a better chance of meeting the person I was meant to be with. All that worrying I’d done, and I needn’t have, not really. Things always work out, in the end, you’ll see. I’m sure there’s a reason for everything the gods do.”

Hitoka looks down. She wishes she could share Sugawara-san’s confidence, but doesn’t really know if she can. It’s not him who has a selkie connected to her instead of a normal soul animal, after all, and maybe he’d feel differently if he knew about that. It doesn’t seem particularly fair of the gods to play with people’s feelings the way they have with her, either, but she’s not about to admit as much. She’s mostly made her peace with it, after all, and sitting and wondering about all the what-ifs just won’t do.

“I don’t mind,” she tells him eventually, before realising that she’s not really replying so much as she’s starting a whole new topic as far as Sugawara must be aware. “I mean, about not knowing yet! I… it’s like you said. It’ll all work out eventually.”

“That’s the spirit, Yachi-chan,” he says, beaming in her direction. “But if you ever want to talk about it, I don’t mind. I’m often down by the coast, so you don’t have to come into the village if you feel too shy.”

Hitoka blushes, and looks down at her tightly clasped hands where they rest in her lap. Is she really that easy to read? What if he was able to tell that she was lying about her soul animal before, and thinks less of her for being dishonest about something so important?

“I mean, no offence, it’s just that you’ve always been pretty quiet,” Sugawara says, and she relaxes, ever so little. He sighs, and adds: “I suppose I should get back home. It’s been nice talking to you, Yachi-chan.”

“Yes!” she squeaks, watching him go, and that much is true even if she _does_ feel bad about not telling him the truth.

 

* * *

 

It gets easier to talk to Sugawara as the months and years pass. She falls into what she could almost call a routine, sketching and painting, and collecting seashells to put up around her bedroom. After a while she has so many seascapes that there’s no more room to keep them in the cottage, and she has to ask Mama what they should do with them all.

“You should sell them, of course,” her mother says primly, but there’s a hint of pride in her eyes as she speaks. “You’re a grown woman now Hitoka, you should be thinking of how to support yourself, and as long as you don’t expect to afford too many luxuries from it, this is as good a start as any. You should write to your friends in Kumanobe, and ask if you could visit.”

Hitoka hates the thought of leaving the ocean, but she knows her Mama is right. There’s no one in the village who would be interested in buying her paintings except perhaps the Sugawaras, and their house is already far grander than anything she could paint. Nor can she simply sell the paintings via an intermediary. Not if she wants to make any money from them, at least. It’s not a decision she makes lightly, but eventually she makes up her mind and writes to the Tsukishima family, asking if she can beg their hospitality one more time.

 

* * *

 

Kumanobe is different, somehow. Visiting it as an adult—or _almost_ an adult, anyway, because at nineteen she’s just shy of the age most people consider a young lady of her station to be fully grown—she sees a different side to the place. It’s less grand and significant, and more a clustering of too many homes in not enough space. Narrow streets and sewer carts which clog the air with nose and fumes. She’s glad of the freshness when the carriage finally pulls into the Tsukishima estate and the air fills with the scent of a thousand flowers all in bloom for the summer.

There’s a far smaller welcome party for her this time too, but that’s no mind. She no longer needs help to step down from the carriage after all, and she is familiar enough with the townhouse and its surrounding gardens that it feels comfortable, if not exactly homelike.

Tsukishima Kei walks out of the house to meet her as the coachman opens the door of the carriage, and bows his greetings respectfully.

“It’s good to see you,” he says calmly, and she wonders about the new, formal note in his voice a little before remembering that although they have exchanged letters, it’s been years since they’ve seen each other in person. Years in which he’s been cooped up in this town having to follow the rules, while she’s run free along the shorelines.

She smiles up at him, marvelling at just how _long_ he is these days, and dips a bow. “Please pardon my intrusion on your home,” she says, with exaggerated politeness. “I hope my country manners will not impose.”

There’s a settling in period of a few days before any of the Tsukishima family will countenance her going out to seek an agent for her paintings. It’s both peaceful and frustrating—she yearns to be back at the ocean, but it is nice to have someone her own age to talk to again, particularly someone who knows about Shimizu.

Yamaguchi calls by once or twice and it’s good to see him too—although she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to just how much both her friends have turned into tall, tall young men, towering over her as though she were still a child. Tsukishima she could understand, because he’s always been rather tall for his age, but it just seems unfair that Yamaguci should have shot up quite that much as well.

“Ah, but you’ve got a healthy look about you, Yachi-chan,” Yamaguchi says one day, then immediately blushes. “I mean! I didn’t mean anything _odd_ by that, just… you don’t ever seem to get tired, and Tsukki says you’re always the first person up and that you walk around the garden three times a day!”

Yachi smiles. It’s a little presumptuous, perhaps, but she’s changed enough in the last few years that she no longer feels shy telling them that they should visit her in her cottage by the sea some time.

“It’s the air,” she says. “It’s enough to make anyone strong. I couldn’t stay away from it, these days.”

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t stay in town for long, returning home as soon as she’s made arrangements with an intermediary to sell both the paintings she has brought with her, and any new ones which she will paint in future. Her seascapes have an appreciative audience, here in town where they are considered exotic and different. Few of the wealthier residents of the town care to visit isolated villages for pleasure, and the _less_ wealthy families couldn’t afford to.

Hitoka is surprised, a little, at how much better she feels for her trip away, even as she rejoices in the ocean breeze and the security of her bedroom in the cottage, which has been hers for so long that she knows every nook and cranny of it so well that she could map it out blindfold. But _returning_ home feels better than having been there all along— there’s a pleasure to it which reduces the monotony she hadn’t noticed creeping up on her.

Not that she thinks she wants to go away again either, mind. Her trip to Kumanobe feels like the final chapter in a book she hadn’t even realised she’d left unread by dropping out of the school and her potential future as a lady there. She’s satisfied, and more confident than ever that she made the right choice.

It’s still lonely sometimes, with only Mama and the servants to talk to, and occasionally Sugawara, by the sea. But that’s not necessarily a _bad_ kind of loneliness. It’s wistful and almost romantic in a way. There’s something missing—there’s something _always_ missing—but she knows what that is. Knows _who_ it is, and Shimizu might be a passing, fleeting joy in her future instead of a constant the way a soulmate would have been, but it’s better to have fleeting moments of happiness than nothing at all, surely? There’s no soulmate waiting for her anywhere, so she might as well make herself content with what she has.

Her friends do visit, although it sends Mama into what almost looks like a panic—bustling around to make their comparatively humble home suitable for guests. Hitoka doesn’t really think it’s necessary, but she follows along with her mother’s wishes, dutifully helping to paint the outer walls and temporarily moving her belongings into one of the cottages’ smaller rooms so that her own and Mama’s can be given over to their guests.

Sleeping on a futon beside her mother in a different room of the house is hard. She hasn’t shared a room since she was young enough to have nightmares still, seeking out her mother’s comfort from bad dreams or thundery weather. But it’s worth the sleepless nights to share her home with her friends, and watch them fumble a little to adapt—exactly the way she had to in Town, all those years ago.

“It’s quite a view,” Tsukishima remarks on the second day of their visit, panting to catch his breath after they’ve marched dutifully along the cliffs to the best viewpoint. “I can see why you like it, although the countryside is awfully…rustic.”

“Yeah, I really understand why you want to paint it all the time now,” Yamaguchi adds, rubbing his side a little and wincing. “Isn’t it kinda lonely, though? I didn’t realise you were _this_ cut off from everything. I’ve never seen so much…well, _space_.”

Hitoka smiles, closing her eyes and letting the breeze ruffle her hair. “It’s peaceful, I think. And…sometimes I talk to people in the village. And Sugawara-san is kind. We talk sometimes because his soul animal is in the ocean so he spends a lot of time on the beach. I always used to think Kumanobe was much too loud for me.”

Tsukishima snorts, which is the most undignified sound Hitoka has heard him make for years. “If this is what you consider normal, I’m not surprised,” he says. “I don’t understand why your mother doesn’t build a wall around the house though, at least on the side facing the road. It’s too open.”

Hitoka tries, but she can’t quite hold back her amusement. Not even her hand over her mouth can stop the giggling. “I used to think it was strange that you live behind _walls_ all the time!” she says. “Who’s going to look in on us, up here on the cliffside? Walls would just spoil the view, don’t you think?”

“The grand house has walls though,” Yamaguchi says, pointing across the large bay separating them from the village, and the Sugawara residence on the hillside behind it.

“ _Yes_ , but they also have two storeys,” Hitoka says, shrugging. “So they can see over the top. And Mama says their family has lived here for generations, and they own all the land, and the old Sugawara-san was the meanest person who ever lived and had people build the walls so no one could see the cherry blossom in his gardens. He died before I was born though, and all the Sugawara family living there now are very friendly and let the trees grow tall, but Sugawara-san that I talk to sometimes said they're only so high still because  it’s too much work to take them down again. Not to mention there’s no one to do the work. Karasumi is only a small village, so they’d have to hire people in from town.”

Yamaguchi frowns. “It sounds like living in the country is a lot of work,” he says. “Your Shimizu must be quite special, to give up being in Kumanobe for her.”

Hitoka sighs. “She is,” she says wistfully, and sighs once more, sitting down on the grass and tucking her legs beneath her.

She halfway notices that only Yamaguchi chooses to sit on the grass—Tsukishima wrinkling his face up as though he stepped on something nasty when Yamaguchi gestures for him to sit beside them both—but her focus is still on the sea as she tries to gather through the jumble of feelings that seeing her friends again has stirred up.

“I… I think I _could_ have gotten used to Kumanobe in the end,” she says at last. “When I was younger I thought I’d love being here forever—and I still think I can be happy here, don’t get me wrong! But…”

“But?” Yamaguchi asks, after she’s sat in silence for a while.

Hitoka sets her face, pushing down the wave of sadness. It’s understandable, especially knowing that her two friends have their own soulmates to go home to, but there’s no reason she has to cry about it! She’s made her decision and she’s got to see it through, she just has to!

“It is lonely, sometimes,” she admits. “It’s not _awful_ , like it must have been for Mama when she had to leave the life she was used to because of being in Disgrace, because I grew up here, so I know how everything works. I’m used to it. And normally I’m happy, really I am! It’s just…sometimes… Seven years is really, really long, you know? It doesn’t get any shorter just because I’m grown up.”

 

* * *

 

Hitoka is sad when her friends leave, but only in an ordinary, general sense. It’s easier to talk to them in person instead of writing letters and waiting for them to be delivered, but without them normality takes over: her daily walks; her occasional conversations with Suga-san, as she gradually starts to feel comfortable calling him; her painting sessions up and down the stretch of coastline she has all but claimed as her own. Now and then she walks down into the village and paints the small harbour, and walks along the shoreline collecting shells, seaweed, and other beach paraphernalia which she can use to decorate her room.

It starts as a bit of an accident—the foot of her easel comes loose, and a scrap of driftwood lying on the sand nearby suffices as a makeshift replacement. She packs it up with the rest of her things when she’s finished for the day because she doesn’t know when she’ll feel like going into the village to ask Sawamura to fix her easel, and then ends up using it as a shelf for her inks when the easel _is_ repaired. It looks quite nice, after all, worn smooth by the tide and bleached by the salt and sun.

The shells have been a constant for years already—starting on beach walks with Shimizu. It’s since become a firm habit for her to pick up any particularly large or attractive ones, and carry them around until the end of the day. When she’d walked with Shimizu they would usually decide which was the nicest at the end of the day and discard the rest, but without her friend there to share opinions with Hitoka usually ends up keeping at least two or three.

When the box of shells gets too full she takes some of the smaller ones and weaves twine around them, turning them into necklaces similar to the one Shimizu gave her. She wears her own necklace every day that the weather is fine. It’s too precious to take chances on windier days, and on those she leaves it wrapped in a shawl in her bedroom instead. The thought of something happening to it is enough to send her into a panic—what if it is broken when Shimizu returns, and she asks where it is and Hitoka has to confess that she didn’t look after her gift properly? Even just imagining it makes her feel ill, and gives her a compulsive need to check that it’s still in its rightful place.

It’s a natural progression to sell her necklaces as well as her paintings, after the few which she gives to friends in the village are received with high praise. They don’t fetch much of a price the way her paintings do, but they don’t need to. She makes them to pass the time, and selling them is more a bonus than a necessity. Mama tells her that it’s good for her to have a business to fall back on—that one day she will be glad of even such an unusual trade as she has developed—but Hitoka isn’t thinking that far ahead. She can’t see a future past her twenty-third year, when Shimizu will return and they will have seven days over seven weeks to be together again.

Sometimes, the sheer absurdity of her life leaves her breathless. She’s shaped everything around one week every seven years. Can she _really_ keep it up? Can she manage to go on this way, alone for most of her life. Someday—she doesn’t want to think about it, but deep down she knows she has to face reality—someday Mama will be gone, and it will just be her, Hitoka, living alone in a cottage out on the promontory, battered by winds on two sides and utterly, utterly alone.

But when she stops, and thinks about the peace she feels with Shimizu, or the way her gentle grey eyes can light up with so much life—how could she consider anything else? It’s hard being apart for so long, but the time they have together makes everything worth it. It’s all she wants. She loves her too much to consider the alternative.

 _That’s_ a hard thought to get her head around. Love is so strange a thing, so unfamiliar until she stops and reads the old stories, and strips away the messy complications of legends which warn her of a broken heart and cursed future. She’s spent years denying it, but what does that change? Does it _matter_ any more, now that she’s fallen in love with a selkie? It’s too late to change it; too late to go back and stay home that day—and if she hadn’t met Shimizu, what then?

 _Having her for just seven days every seven years is better than never knowing her at all,_ she decides, and that’s that.

 

* * *

 

Hitoka is twenty-three years old, and the spring has arrived. New growth springs forth from every crevice—green leaves and flowers alike peeping out on the world in clusters at the base of every tree, and cherry trees bulging with future blossom overhead. Hitoka wakes before the sun each morning and dresses ready for an early walk. She limits herself back and forth along the cove, alternately pacing along the sand for hours at a time, and perching on the highest rocks she can clamber atop of to gaze far out to sea.

Shimizu doesn’t come.

Hitoka keeps watch each morning, heedless of the weather; the sun which bakes her skin despite the chilly air; the winds which whip at her clothes and hair; the rain which batters and drenches her and leaves her shivering in a huddle beneath her wide-brimmed hat and cloak. Shimizu has to come soon. She promised. She promised she’d come back, and that they would have their seven days together.

Around her, the season marches on. Spring flowers bloom and then fade; cherry blossom melts underfoot into the stronger, more long-lasting summer greenery. The days stretch out and grow.

Hitoka waits,

 

and waits,

 

and waits.

 

* * *

 

The ache in her heart is odd. She’s not sure if it should feel bigger or smaller than it actually does. Seven years is a long time, and she’s known that all along, but now that they have passed and there’ still no sign of Shimizu… What now? She can’t deny that Shimizu is late—the first of her seven visits had been in the spring both times, and now Midsummer is approaching and the seas are still empty. But she can’t bring herself to give up just yet. Can’t quite find the willpower to believe that Shimizu really isn’t going to return; that she’ll spend the rest of her life waiting in vain.

It’s easier to pretend denial, and keep waiting. Hoping against hope that she’s wrong, that somehow years of meticulous patience have just let her mistake the date. As though the seasons will flip back any moment, the last few lonely months just a figment of her imagination.

Mama says nothing about her long days on the cliffside, watching the ocean with wide, patient eyes. Hitoka isn’t quite sure if her mother feels vindicated about the warnings she gave, or whether she just pities Hitoka for the lonely vigil she maintains.

She wakes, one sunny morning with the sun peeking through all the cracks in the shutters, and opens them to see a figure standing on the shore.

Her breath catches in her throat and her clothes are halfway on before she even registers that something feels wrong—something doesn’t fit—and it’s not until she’s stood at the foot of the path and sees a _man_ , barefoot and with a sealskin cloak masking his nakedness, that she realises the depth of her mistake.

“Who—” she starts to say, but then he’s turning and Hitoka is too busy squealing in surprise and covering her face to finish her sentence.

“ _You’re_ her?” the man snaps, but Hitoka is too surprised to pay attention to his words or how he’s talking, thinking only about how he’s walking _closer_.

“Clothes!” she squeaks, and with her eyes tightly closed she reaches into the bag she’s kept ready for this day and pulls out what was _meant_ to be a picnic blanket. It’s better than nothing, surely?

“And what am I supposed to do with _this?_ ” the man asks, sounding no less frustrated than he had before.

“Put it _on!_ ” Hitoka says, holding it out at arm’s length. “You…you can’t just be _naked_.”

The man makes a strangled, frustrated sort of sound in the back of his throat, but stalks closer, feet slapping the damp sand. He snatches the blanket out of her hand with a huff.

“You want me to… just wrap it around?” he asks. “Why do you humans have to make things so difficult? We’re wasting time.”

Eyes still firmly closed, Hitoka hears the sounds of muttered complaints and fabric rustling. There’s a thump and a sigh, a more brisk huff, and then further rustling.

“There. That will have to do. Open your eyes.”

Hitoka peeps first, halfway worried that she’s going to see something she shouldn’t, but the man has taken the picnic blanket and wrapped it around himself so that it’s knotted above one shoulder. The sealskin draped over his shoulders holds it in place and does a fairly good job of holding it closed. She’s about to suggest that she run back up to the cottage and fetch some more fabric so he can have a belt when he starts talking:

“You need to come with me,” he says flatly. “Ki— _Shimizu’s_ skin has been stolen by a human, and only a land-dweller will be able to find it and get it back to her.”

Hitoka gasps, feeling her bag slip through her fingers. It hits the ground with a soft _thump_ , apples rolling out to bump into her feet.

“Someone—but _why?_ ” she asks. “Who would _do_ something like that?”

The man frowns past his strawberry blond and oddly angular fringe.

“Because he’s _human_ ,” he snaps, face twisted into something dreadfully intimidating. “That’s what humans do.” A moment later he freezes, and winces a little.

“That’s what _most_ humans do, I mean,” he says a little more gently, clearing his throat. “Obviously you’re different…uh… Hm. Shimizu only ever used your given name. I don’t know much about humans, but that seems inappropriately intimate and risky. What should I call you?”

“O-oh, uh, I… Y-Yachi is fine!” Hitoka stutters. She doesn’t think her brain has fully caught up with things. Doesn’t think she _wants_ it to. Someone… someone _kidnapped_ Shimizu? She’s—

“I feel sick,” she mumbles, and her legs give out beneath her. She’s idly glad of the sand for the soft landing it provides, but in that moment she thinks she could have landed on rocks and not really minded. All these weeks of waiting— _months_ , probably, because she can’t quite manage to count them—and it’s not because Shimizu forgot about her, or disappeared forever, or doesn’t want to come back. She’s in _danger!_ Someone’s holding her prisoner somewhere, and _forcing_ them to be apart?

Her chest heaves, gasping for air which doesn’t quite seem enough to breathe with. What will they do? What _can_ they do? Shimizu is gone? If she’s being held prisoner on land she _can’t_ be happy—every time she talked about the other selkies she swims with in the ocean she seemed to just light up with joy, and anyway she’d promised to come back—she’d said she _wanted_ to come back, more than she was supposed to, even. And now she can’t? What if she gets sick from being on the land so long? What if Hitoka never sees her again? They’ll have to spend the rest of their lives apart, and—

“Hey. _Hey!_ ” the man says, kneeling down in front of her and snapping his fingers in her face.

Hitoka flinches, gasping and jerking backwards. She stares at him wide-eyed.

“Yachi,” he says flatly. “Shimizu told me a lot about you. She cares about you, but more importantly right now, she said she thinks you really care about her. Is she right?”

“Of course I care!” Hitoka says, the words tripping over each other as they tumble out of her mouth. “I care about her _so much!_ I…I…”

“Yes, yes, good for you,” the man says. “Will you help me rescue her? She’s trapped in another of your fishing villages, far north of here. I—” He falters, and the anger and frustration on his face fall away into something far softer, and more vulnerable.

“If I go too far ashore someone could steal _my_ skin, and I’d be in no better a position than Shimizu is. But you’re human. You know how to…to blend in with them, so you can find it and get it back to her.”

“ _Me?_ ” Hitoka squeaks. “But I…I’ve never done anything like that before… The only other place I’ve ever been was the town, and that was in a carriage—”

“Oh, so you _don’t_ care?” the man snaps, getting to his feet. The anger is back, as quick as if it had never left. “It doesn’t mean _anything_ that she’s trapped and scared she’ll never be free? Because my cousin _trusted_ humans because of you—she never would have been in this position otherwise!”

Hitoka bites the inside of her cheek to fend off tears. This is _awful_. It’s like every nightmare she’s ever had, all thrown together and made twice as bad. She feels sick, feels like her legs are jelly and her throat is dry, and the world may as well be ending because Shimizu is _trapped_ , and it’s all her fault, and she might never be free and they might never see her again if Hitoka doesn’t do something, but _how_ can she do something—she’s just… just _useless_ , the strange lady who wanders around the beaches gathering shells and painting the sea, and no one in school ever thought all that much of her _really_ , and even Tsukishima and Yamaguchi never came to visit again after that one time which means even her _friends_ didn’t think that much of her, so how can she do something this big and this grand and this _brave_ , because she’s terrified even at the thought of leaving, and—

The babble of panic stops, cut off abruptly by one final thought:

If she _doesn’t_ go, who will help Shimizu? Who will rescue her from captivity, the way Shimizu came to her and rescued her from loneliness all those years ago?

Hitoka takes a deep breath, and realises how quiet the beach is. The wind has dropped, and the sun is peeking out between pale clouds, and the world is carrying on without seeming to realise just how important this moment is. But that’s okay. After all, she’s just plain old Yachi Hitoka, and she’s never done anything special or important before.

She’s about to change that though.

“I…I need some time to pack my things,” she says. “If I’m going to be travelling a long way.”

 

* * *

 

Her mother is still asleep when she returns to their cottage. It seems absurd— _impossible—_ that so little time could have passed, but somehow it’s true.  
  
Hitoka doesn’t stop to wake her—she hopes that by the time she’s finished packing her things she won’t _have_ to, because the conversation is going to be difficult enough as it is, and the last thing she wants is to make it harder. How can she possibly explain what she’s doing? It almost seems like madness to _her_ , and she’s the one who’s actually going.  
  
She doesn’t get much of a chance to worry about it, however, because it’s only a couple of minutes after she starts rummaging through the trunk and cabinet in her room that she hears footsteps on the tatami outside her door, and a moment later a gentle knock.  
  
“Hitoka?” her mother asks, biting back a yawn. “What are you doing in there?”  
  
Hitoka freezes, halfway through folding one of her dresses, and stares guiltily up at the door. She closes her eyes, sends a prayer to any god still interested in the fate of someone so obviously overlooked thus far, and gets to her feet.  
  
“Mama, I…” she begins, but it’s too much to try and explain, and instead she simply bursts into tears, hiccoughing as her mother pulls her into her arms. “Mama I have to _go_ ,” she manages at last. “I’ve… She’s… Shimizu _needs_ me.”  
  
Her mother pulls back, and examines her critically, just as though she were a piece of silk being checked for flaws.  
  
“How long will you be gone?” she asks after a long moment.  
  
“I don’t know,” Hitoka whispers in reply, too shellshocked by the morning’s events to even question why her mother is taking this so calmly. Shouldn’t she be scolding her about now?  
  
“Very well.”  
  
There’s a long silence, broken only by Hitoka’s ragged breaths. Hitoka feels frozen. She needs to pack, needs to get going before the rest of the day passes by, but she can’t _move_.  
  
“Where will you sleep?” her mother asks at last. “What will you do for food? Have you considered how much money you will need to sustain you?”  
  
“I…no,” Hitoka mumbles, hanging her head.  
  
Her mother sighs. “You’d best pack lightly then. You’ll want to save the weight for a bedroll and some oilcloth to make a shelter each night. It’s better to save the money you carry for food—although of course this should be spread across several purses for security. Take some of your necklaces with you, they will be less tempting to thieves, and you can sell them further along should you need to.”  
  
Then she’s gone, turning quickly and calling for the cook to cancel breakfast and start baking something which will keep on a long journey instead, and Hitoka can’t quite believe what she’s hearing; what she _heard_.  
  
_Shimizu_ , she thinks, caught between conflicting emotions that tug her in every direction at once. _Hurry_.  
  
A few seconds more of indecision and she darts back into her room, gathering things into a pile. She upends the bag normally filled with art supplies and other things she uses on her beach walks, and stuffs it with her clothes, a comb, a pair of sandals—if she’s following a selkie she’ll probably be walking along the beach a lot—and stalls. What else will she need? She’s never travelled before, not _really_. Getting a carriage to Kumanobe to stay with the Tsukishimas doesn’t count as _anything_ compared with what she’s about to do.  
  
It’s laughable. Part of her _wants_ to laugh, to give in to the rising hysteria which threatens to overtake her. This is—it’s _nonsense_. How can she rescue Shimizu from someone big and strong enough to have stolen her skin? She halts, hands shaking over her bag as she tries to think of something else she might take to prepare herself.  
  
Her mother’s footsteps are brisk as they return, and then there’s warmth beside her as she’s pulled into the sort of embrace she’d almost forgotten about. Warm and safe with her mother’s arms around her, and a quiet murmur in her ear:  
  
“Hitoka, you mustn’t panic like this. You need to think sensibly. What have you packed? Warm things? It gets cold at night in early summer. You’ll need a tinder box, too, and eating utensils. The housemaid has a knife she can give you—one with a sheath, so that you can carry it with you on your belt. It will serve you better than the little thing you use for sharpening your pencils. Take string, too. It’s always ever so useful, and you make those necklaces of yours, those can be traded and assuming you’ll be following the coast you’ll find other materials as you go.”  
  
She realises, a little way in, that her mother isn’t really talking to her so much as she’s talking to herself, reassuring herself that it will all be okay. It’s odd, and it shouldn’t be the case, but somehow the fact that her mother is worried about her prospects gives her strength.  
  
“I can do this, Mama,” she says. “I have a guide, I can ask him for help if need be. Shimizu is his cousin, he’ll make sure I’m alright.”  
  
She’s not sure about that, not at all. The new selkie on the beach is anything but friendly—but they have Shimizu in common, and if he’s desperate enough to ask for her help, he’s got to help her in return, right? If nothing else, she won’t be able to rescue Shimizu if something happens to her along the way.  
  
The thought of everything which could happen to her along the way is not a nice one, and it’s enough to set her panicking a little again, but before she can really get going thinking of all the bandits and robbers and murderers and storms and monsters and, and, everything which could go wrong, they’re interrupted by the housemaid clearing her throat.  
  
“Yachi-san?” she asks. “I have the things you asked for.”  
  
Hitoka looks up as her mother gets to her feet, thanking the girl and following her out of the room. Hitoka clenches her hands into fists tight enough for her fingernails to leave crescents in the palms of her hands, and shakes her head. No! She can’t panic! If she doesn’t get her act together, who’s going to save Shimizu? Who’s going to return her to the ocean where she belongs?

 

* * *

  
The morning passes in a blur, and the sun is high by the time she leaves the cottage with everything she and her mother could think of—everything they could think of that she can actually carry, anyway. Some of it is food and money, which means her load will get lighter as she goes, and some of it is a bedroll which the cook had run down into the village to get from one of the people there, because Mama hadn’t ever needed to own one. The tinder box is the housemaid’s, and the oilcloth belongs to one of the fishermen, and the handle of the knife the housemaid gave her was made by Sawamura the carpenter. It feels a little like half the village has helped her.  
  
The selkie on the beach—he hadn’t offered his name earlier, and Hitoka hadn’t liked to ask—is waiting impatiently, pacing up and down the sand. He gapes at her as she makes her way down into the sandy cove.  
  
“Did you pack your whole house?” he asks. “You took hours! Every minute you waste is another minute my cousin is being held captive!”  
  
“I know!” Hitoka snaps, because those words haven’t stopped echoing in her head, over and over since he first told her, and does he honestly think she somehow forgot? Didn’t he ever stop to think about how she feels, knowing that the person she cares about most is in danger? “I’m not a selkie! I can’t turn into a seal and be fine without anything. I need all of this to keep me alive if I go off on my own, and if I don’t have it I won’t be able to save anyone!”  
  
She can’t remember the last time she shouted. She’s not sure she ever has, not out of anger at least. Judging by the expression on his face, she doesn’t think he’s used to people shouting at him, either. In an halfway idle, halfway hysterical corner of her mind, she wonders which of the two of them is the most surprised.  
  
“Right,” he says at last, and glares down at the sand. “Well, we’ve lost the tide. It’s getting higher, cutting off the shore.”  
  
“So I’ll go back up and walk along the cliff,” Hitoka says firmly. “You said it’s a long way. I can’t wait and only walk at low tide. All I have to do is keep going North, right? I can’t get lost as long as I stay on the shoreline.”  
  
“I’m not going up there,” he says flatly, eyeing the rocky path out of the cove.  
  
Hitoka clenches her teeth. She’s just put her whole life into a bag on her back to save Shimizu, even though she’s scared out of her mind. Why is he making this so difficult?  
  
“You don’t have to,” she says, after taking several deep breaths. “I’ll come back down to the beaches when the tide goes out again. You can meet me further along, if you’re actually planning to help me find her.”  
  
Why is she talking like this, as though she doesn’t desperately need his guidance and help to actually pull this off? She sounds like she doesn’t _want_ his help, as though she’s trying to push him away!  
  
He doesn’t reply at first, instead staring at her with narrowed eyes that seem to pierce her down to her soul. Hitoka can’t move, can’t look away. Doesn’t he want _her_ help? Why is he making it so difficult, anyway?  
  
“Fine,” he says at last. “Head north. I’ll meet you in the bay beyond the village. I’m not going anywhere near other humans, you understand me? I like my skin just where it is.”  
  
Hitoka nods, and rather than spend any more time talking to the selkie just turns and heads back up the path. Honestly though, she’s trying to be sympathetic towards him, because he’s got to be as worried about Shimizu as she is, but he’s not making it at all easy. Why can’t he be more friendly?  
  
She gets a short way along the path down to the village before the enormity of everything overwhelms her again. Who does she think she’s kidding: she can’t do this! It’s ridiculous! It’s—  
  
_It’s for Shimizu_ , she tells herself firmly. _No one else can help her, so I’ve got to at least try._

* * *

  
  
Walking through the village is a little strange—she can see people staring at her, laden with her travelling things, and turning to each other to start the gossip. Who knows what theories they’ll have come up with by the time she comes back. It doesn’t really matter though. She’s never had much reason to talk to them before, has she? And she’s happy to be the village crazy lady forever if it means knowing that Shimizu is free.  
  
Really, the thought that she might be able to make a difference is the only thing which keeps her going; past all the houses; past the little fleet of boats and the men scrubbing their hulls along the sand of the cove; past the group of children playing beside their fathers and uncles and brothers, calling out to her and asking where she’s going.  
  
“For a walk,” she tells them, hardly slowing down. They trail along behind her like ducklings, and Hitoka halts. She doesn’t want to get in trouble for leading them away from the village like some kind of…some kind of witch from a story!  
  
“You don’t need to carry all that stuff for just a walk,” a girl says flatly, hands on her hips. She’s one of the older children, a fairly short girl with vivid ginger hair. Hitoka thinks she remembers hearing people call her Natsu.  
  
“It’s a very long walk,” is all she allows herself to tell Natsu and her followers. She gives them a brief smile before she adjusts her bag, grimacing a little at the weight of it. “So I can’t stay and talk, I’m afraid.”  
  
“How long?” someone else asks.  
  
Hitoka sighs. “I’m not sure,” she says, sagging a little. “Until I get to the end of it, I guess.” She forces a larger smile onto her face, and looks at the assembled crowd, adding: “So wish me luck! You’ll have to tell me what I missed when I get back.”  
  
“We will,” Natsu says solemnly. “Good luck on your walk, Yachi-san. We'll all be waiting for you to come home.”  
  
Hitoka definitely, absolutely doesn’t cry at that. Not until she’s well clear of the village, at any rate.

* * *

  
  
She’s still rubbing her eyes when she meets the selkie at the beachhead. He emerges from between two rocks looking a little self-conscious, and she’s suddenly struck with the thought that she hadn’t actually known that selkies could be men at all. It seems rude to ask about it though, so she buries the question at the back of her mind and just slows a little so that he can fall in step beside her.  
  
They walk in silence together, and that part is familiar enough that if she closes her eyes she can almost pretend it’s Shimizu she’s walking beside, that this whole nightmare is exactly that, and she’s not setting out on a journey to a mysterious, unknown destination without even knowing if she can make it there, let alone how she’s going to find Shimizu’s skin and return it to her if she ever does.  
  
It’s not enough though, not least because, after only a few seconds of shutting them, the selkie asks:  
  
“Why are you doing that? You can’t possibly see where you’re going, and if you trip over something you won’t be able to continue walking.”  
  
Hitoka opens her eyes and does her best to glare at him, but her heart isn’t in it. Instead she just sighs, and focuses on making her way along the sandy beach towards the next headland, trying to remember if she can walk around this one or if she’ll need to climb up and over to get past the breakers. The silence grows oppressive again, despite the gentle sea breeze and the sound of the waves, and really it’s only a matter of time before her curiosity was going to get the better of her anyway, so after a few minutes more she risks a question.  
  
“How long have you known Shimizu, then?” she asks, keeping her head down in case he gets annoyed at her again for pestering him.  
  
He doesn’t answer at first, just keeps plodding along, barefoot across the sand until Hitoka remembers that she’d brought a pair of sandals for him in case there were any rocks along the way that they needed to climb. She’s about to suggest they stop so that she can fetch them down from the bag and show him how to wear them when he clears his throat and says:  
  
“Technically my whole life. She’s a year older than me.” He frowns, watching Hitoka with obvious suspicion out of the corner of his eye for a few more paces before adding: “We grew up together, more or less.”  
  
Hitoka swallows. “You must be very close, then.”  
  
He shakes his head, fringe somehow settling back into its neat, angular shape afterward. “Selkies don’t really socialise the way seals themselves do. We tend to spend a lot of time alone.”  
  
“Oh,” she says. “I suppose that explains a lot. Shimizu always told me more about the other animals and plants in the ocean, and what it’s like to swim in the deep water. She never really talked about her family.”  
  
“Well, of course not,” the selkie says flatly. “You’re human.”  
  
Hitoka bites the inside of her lip, and stays silent. Just when she thought he was starting to get a little less intimidating, and he has to do something like that. It’s not fair. She knows why, thinks it’s understandable given that it’s another human responsible for kidnapping Shimizu and… well she can’t be happy, not being able to be in the sea. But it’s not her who did that, it’s someone else, and she’s doing her best to help put things to right again, really she is.  
  
Maybe it will be easier when we get to the village, she thinks, and focuses on putting one foot in front of the other rather than try to talk any more. She probably ought to save her energy, anyway.

* * *

  
They keep walking, side by side except for a short stretch where the selkie takes to the water to avoid the neighbouring village, barely stopping even to eat until Hitoka staggers to a halt, clutching her sides while the sun begins to sink behind the hills to the left of them.  
  
“Hey,” the selkie says, folding his arms. “What are you doing?”  
  
“I have to stop,” Hitoka replies between gasps for breath. “If… We passed one village but I don’t know where the next is. It’s going to be dark soon. I’ve got to make shelter, and try to start a fire.”  
  
“Why?” he asks.  
  
She stares at him. “I need to sleep. I can’t just lie on the sand—even in summer I’d catch a chill and get sick, maybe even die. And I need to make a fire to keep wild animals away, because otherwise they might come and attack me while I’m sleeping, and then even if I woke up and tried to fight them off I’d be injured, and maybe too hurt to walk, or if they bit me it might get infected and then that might kill me unless I found someone to help me.”  
  
He stares at her, eyes wide. For a moment she wonders if he’s going to yell again. Instead he just sighs and rubs his temples.  
  
“So…you’re telling me you’re more or less completely defenceless, and even more so while you sleep,” he says. “Are all humans like this?”  
  
Hitoka nods. “That’s why we have houses,” she says. “And why normally we travel in a group, so people can take watch and make sure nothing bad happens during the night.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
He doesn’t sound angry, or at least Hitoka doesn’t think he sounds angry, but he definitely doesn’t seem all that happy about this development either.  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”  
  
“I did tell you that!” Hitoka cries, clenching her fists with frustration. “I told you I needed to pack, and that all the things in my bags were important—what did you think I’ve been carrying this whole way?”  
  
He stares at her, mouth opening and closing a few times as though he’s about to say something but keeps changing his mind. Finally he throws his arms up in the air.  
  
“Fine. Fine!” he cries. “You do your human thing then. I’ll be back when you’re ready to get going again. Shimizu will just have to wait another few days in captivity.”  
  
Without waiting for her to reply, he storms off into the ocean, wading off into the growing darkness without any apparent concerns. Hitoka watches him go, watches him shift from walking to swimming, but loses sight of him before he changes shape at all. She’s left alone, standing on a beach in the middle of nowhere.  
  
Suddenly, everything seems so quiet. The sky is turning lilac at the corners; small clouds high above light up in pink and gold. In front of her, the waves lap gently at the shore, and somewhere off behind her the wind rustles through the dunes between the beach and some kind of scrubland.  
  
She makes her way up the beach to a point out of the reach of the tides, and takes off her largest bag. There are odd bits of driftwood up and down the high water mark, and they’ll have to do for tonight. It’s something to consider for tomorrow, if they don’t reach the village. She’s not sure how long her driftwood fire will last into the evening, and she’s too tired—and it’s too dark—for her to roam much further in search of something to burn.  
  
At least the skies are clear, and not many animals are likely to venture down to the oceanfront. Rather than struggle to work out how to make a proper shelter she simply spreads the oilcloth out on the sand, and builds her small fire a short distance away. There’s plenty of dry glass to supplement the tinder in her fire starting kit, and once it’s going she feels a little safer settling down for the night.  
  
Hitoka watches the flames, and the occasional sparks which fly off into the night, crackling and popping like brief, bright stars as the sun goes down. There’s no sound now but the ocean and the crackling of the fire, and occasional insects in the dunes behind her. Some way off into the woods, an owl hoots.  
  
She’s alone. Completely alone, and the only person who knows where she is exactly is a grumpy selkie who’s abandoned her. She ought to be with Shimizu. Ought to have had her seven days, at least, but instead she’s out here in the middle of nowhere and what are the chances of actually finding her? Does Shimizu even know that someone is on the way to save her? She must be so sad, and scared, trapped in a strange village with no one she knows or trusts, and if someone was cruel enough to steal her skin, what else are they doing to her? If anyone’s hurt Shimizu, Hitoka will…will…  
  
She can’t finish the thought. What can she do? Cry? Break down and fall apart? It feels like what’s happening now, sat on her own in the growing dark with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.  
  
Hitoka watches the fire late into the night, as it burns down and turns to glowing embers. They blur in her vision with the tears which she can’t hold back, and she adds her own sobs to the chorus of nighttime sounds. That no one can hear her shamefully melodramatic breakdown isn’t comforting at all.  
  
At some point, against all her expectations, she sleeps.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I've had this chapter written since November. _November_. And the next one, too. (Thank you, NaNoWriMo!) Unfortunately, they're long enough that it takes juuust enough time to format them that I haven't been able to get this done until now. Huge apologies for making everyone wait!

The skies are mercifully clear when she wakes, sunlight in her eyes. Its source is rising in front of her, skies ablaze with its light. The waves are capped with gold along a pathway to the east. She almost believes that she could walk it, dazed and tired as she is.

Full awareness of where she is comes later, lagging behind her astonishment of the ocean’s early morning beauty. She’s never stayed out all night before, to wake in the open air. It’s disorienting, dreamlike for a moment with the waves lapping gently at the sand, and birds wheeling overhead.

The fire has long died. Its ashes are cold, with no hope of ever salvaging it to heat water for tea. Hitoka grimaces. She doesn’t have much water left in her flasks in _any_ case. Following the ocean might be good for navigational purposes, but it comes with distinct disadvantages in every other respect.

_There will be villages and towns,_ she tells herself firmly. _I just have to get as far as the next one and I can refill my water bottles._

But thinking about her journey leads directly into thinking about her _destination_. All she knows is that it’s a fishing village, houses nestled around a narrow, steep-sloped harbour at the mouth of a river. The place has a broad, rocky beach to the south and sheer cliffs to the north, and is a considerable distance away. It took the selkie several days’ continuous swimming to travel the distance between the two points, and Hitoka has no idea what that will translate into on foot, walking the contours of the lands and having to stop for food and shelter. She hopes she’ll recognise it when she gets there.

It seems she’s going to have to _rely_ on luck and prayers too, because there’s no sign of her selkie guide anywhere as she comes to her senses and starts to pack things away again. She hopes he’ll come back, but there’s no way for her to know if he’s even _able_ to, or if he’s bound to the same laws as Shimizu herself. Perhaps she’ll have to wait another seven days for him to be able to shift into human form again.

Either way, there’s nothing she can do but keep going. Keep heading north in search of Shimizu, and hope that he can find her somehow. She certainly can’t wait for him to come back. Not with the knowledge that every extra minute she delays is an extra minute that Shimizu is being held against her will.

The morning drags. Her back aches from the heavy supplies she’s carrying, and she’s hot and thirsty in the summer heat. Apples packed by her mother take the edge off her parched throat, but it’s not until she hears larger numbers of gulls screeching in the air overhead that she relaxes a little. Gulls are normally spread quite thinly along the shore. They only gather close together like this where the food allows. More often than not it’s because of a village, where the fishermen haul their catch ashore each day and toss the scraps into piles the birds can scavenge with impunity.

Hitoka stops for a moment, resting her legs and taking in their raucous cries. The sun is high in the sky— it looks to be midday or past it already. She’s been walking without pause since shortly after she woke, only sparing herself occasional sips of water from her flask, and eating the contents of the final bento which the cook had prepared for her. With any luck, she’ll be able to buy fresh food as well as refilling her water flask. It’s a far preferable alternative to eating the dry, bland travel cakes she has to fall back on.

The village is flanked by rocky cliffs, and for a moment Hitoka wonders if she’s found it— if this could possibly be the village where Shimizu is, so close after all her worrying—but the cliffs continue on both sides, and the waterway which winds its way through the centre of the village is more a stream than a river. By the time it makes its way to the beach, it’s still little more that a creek carving a shallow runnel in the sand.

Hitoka masks her disappointment—had she _really_ expected it to be this simple?—and adjusts the weight of her travelling things as she marches up the beach and towards a group of fishermen sitting on a harbour wall and tending to their nets.

The men stare at her as she approaches, and she ducks her head a little. She must look an odd sight, after all. It’s not every day young women come marching along the beach out of nowhere.

“Hello, and good afternoon,” she says, bowing as best she can with the weight on her back. “I’m a traveller passing through and I wondered if I could purchase some supplies?”

“Passing through?” one of the men asks, with transparent surprise. “Where _to?_ ”

“Nevermind _that_ , Kamasaki,” another replies. “What I want to know is where she came _from_.”

Hitoka freezes, staring at them warily. Should she pass the village by, and hope she can reach another before night comes? Should she risk just walking past the group of them, and hoping that she can find someone else in the village who will just allow her to buy some food? Some vegetables would be nice—if she doesn’t cook them they should last a while in her bags, even with the summer heat. There ought to be a place where she can fill her flask with water upstream of the village, in any case.

She edges past them a little, only to halt after just a few paces when they follow her with their eyes, turning to watch her progress as one. They’re _huge._  Great walls of human existence, built like mountains and terrifying, _terrifying_.

The largest of them stands up, and Hitoka prays to the gods if they’re listening at all, because he’s easily twice as tall as her and almost as broad across the shoulders, and he’s staring down at her impassively with a face which looks as though it were carved from stone, and she’s sure that at any moment he’s going to to reach out and just _crush_ her, just as easily as he might a twig. His hair is pure white despite his youth, and if he has any eyebrows at all they’re so faint she can’t see them. It somehow manages to make his eyes even _more_ piercing, not less.

“Aone!” a much smaller man snaps. “Don’t do this _again!_ First the merchant, then that gardener from Karasumi, and now this?”

“Yeah come on, man,” the second fisherman adds, standing up and resting a hand on Aone’s shoulders. “You’re gonna give her like, a heart attack or something.”

Aone glances at the second man, and seems to shrink a little. “She smells of the ocean,” he says at last.

“Well I dunno if you know this, big guy, but we happen to live right _next_ to it. We were _on_ it, just this morning. We _all_ smell like that.”

“No,” Aone says.

“Just _leave it,_ ” the small man replies, and then turns to Hitoka. “I’m sorry about this, he gets a little…uh… Well, never mind him. You said you needed supplies? Are you travelling far?”

Hitoka stares at each of them in turn. She still rather wants to run, but the smaller man looks genuine at least, and she _can_ pay them. Water of the drinkable variety isn’t all that easy to come by on the seashore, and fresh food—and the opportunity to talk to someone when she _buys_ it—would certainly help keep her spirits up.

“Quite a way, I expect,” she says at last, after mustering her courage. They all keep staring at her! “I’m looking for someone.”

“Ahh, a soulmate quest?” the first man—Kamasaki, wasn’t it?—says. He smiles easily. “Been a while since we’ve had anything like that happen in this part of the world.”

“Oh, well, it’s not—” Hitoka starts, and then hangs her head. It’s _not_ true, but it’s probably easier to let them think it is, right? It’s definitely a lot easier to explain than the fact she’s searching for a selkie, particularly as they _are_ fishermen. She knows from the people at home how superstitious sea-going folk can be.

Besides, the more she thinks about it, it _is_ similar, right? Shimizu might not be her soulmate, but she’s probably the closest thing Hitoka is ever going to get. And she cares about her enough that she can’t imagine she’d feel any differently if she _did_ have a soulmate to love. If she’s really honest with herself, she can’t even imagine having a real soulmate anymore. Any time she pictures what they might be like, all she can see in her mind’s eye is Shimizu.

“Ha, she’s blushing!” the second man crows, startling Hitoka out of her reverie. “No good denying it, we can all see the truth.”

“Shut up Futakuchi,” the small man says. He shakes his head. “I’m sorry about him too. But we can certainly get you set up for the next few days. Come with me; my aunt’s an excellent cook…”

 

* * *

 

Hitoka doesn’t escape until the following morning. Moniwa—as the small man eventually remembers to introduce himself—insists upon her staying with his family when she explains that she’s following the line of the coast until she reaches her destination, telling her that there’s no more villages for a long stretch due to the treacherous coastline, and that as the afternoon is stretching on, she’d be stranded in the middle of nowhere with the sun going down.

She doesn’t quite have the courage to explain that she’s already _done_ that, not when the choice between a night alone under the stars, or a night safe and warm in a house has been presented to her. She’s tired, too, and her feet ache from more walking than even _she_ is used to, and without being able to explain the urgency of her quest, everyone assumes that she is taking a gentle pace north.

It’s frustrating—and she lies awake long into the night worrying about Shimizu, hoping that one more day, one more afternoon won’t be too long—but it’s good to wake the next morning to a hearty breakfast, and know that she’s leaving the village with plentiful supplies, and the promise of word being sent south to her mother to let her know she’s getting along just fine.

“And of course you’ll stop by on your way home?” Moniwa asks, as she shoulders her bags and readies herself to set off.

“I’ll do my best,” she says. “I’m not sure when that would be, though.”

He gives her a friendly smile. “Of course. You’ve got to find your soulmate first, and then I’m sure you’ll want a chance to get to know them, and their family. But if you do happen to be passing by, we’ll be glad to see you. Travel safely, and remember: don’t risk the beach for the next ten miles or so. When the high tide comes, it laps right at the foot of the cliffs. Not worth the risk of getting caught between the two. Especially when you’ve such a lucky soulmate waiting for you somewhere.”

Hitoka does her best to smile at that, but it’s about all she can manage not to cry. The reminder is enough to make her feel a little nauseous. What was Shimizu doing while she dallied and remained among her unanticipated new friends?

_Please forgive me,_ she thinks as she sets out. _I promise I won’t get delayed by anything else._

 

* * *

 

But it’s all very well making a promise like that on a clear morning, well-fed and rested, and with the confidence of an entire village to spur her on. It’s less easy when the weather closes in that evening, and she’s forced to stop early to pitch her shelter. She retreats from the shoreline to the fringe of its neighbouring woodland, in the hope of finding somewhere with enough shelter to back it onto and gain some protection from the swelling gale.

And it’s _much_ harder to keep her promise as she cowers in her sleeping roll that night, fireless, friendless, guideless; raindrops seeping into the ground around her oilcloth shelter and its makeshift roof, and no escape from the rustle and ominous creak of the nearby trees as the bad weather passes overhead. There’s no comfort, no assurance, and she wakes to a fine but steady rain after a poor night’s sleep.

The day is long, and lonely besides. She stops earlier than she had hoped in another village, bartering one of her necklaces for a meal when they question what immediate use they have for money, so far from the towns where it can be spent.

There’s no soft bed for her, but she’s granted the use of one of the barns, to shelter from the ongoing rain and offer her a chance for her travel gear to dry. It’s an offer she accepts gratefully—the summer rains are sporadic but thorough, and they have only grown as the day has passed by.

By morning they are a full storm, wind lashing at the sides of the barn, and rain drumming a tattoo on the roof. Hitoka wilts. Can she really walk in weather like this? Surely she’ll be blown away, or dashed upon the rocks at the foot of whatever cliff she approaches—be it from above or below. Between the waves which hug the jagged-edged hills at high tide and the wind which scours the tops of them bare from anything other than bolt, salt-resistant grass, she will surely meet her doom. There is nothing for it but to shelter in the village.

She loses a full day, and even when she sets out, it’s at a far slower pace to account for the sodden ground. It dries slowly around her boots as the morning progresses, so by lunchtime she’s able to sit and eat some food, and takes the opportunity to scrape the worst of the morning’s dirt from her walking boots. She misses the beaches; misses walking barefoot with the ocean lapping at her toes and Shimizu by her side.

But there’s no sign of a village on this lonely stretch of shoreline, and the cliffs continue on and on into the distance with no pathway down to the water’s edge. Hitoka gazes out to sea, wondering if Shimizu’s cousin will actually come back when the week has fully passed, or if she’s on her own from now on.

The thought of continuing her march alone, day after day, is—

Hitoka frowns, watching the white caps dance on the waves further out to sea. The cliff’s edge obscures the shoreline, leaving only the sound they make as they crash into the rocks at its base. It’s a quiet and lonely part of the world, but she’s not scared in the same way she was at the start of her trek. She’s already slept out under the open sky in good weather and ill, sheltered from a storm in a stranger’s barn, and bought and traded supplies for her journey. So far, aside from in villages, she’s met no one on her travels. No robbers, no bandits. She’s hardly even seen any _animals_ —just birds overhead, and a few crabs in rock pools here and there. So far, the journey is long, and tiring, and rather boring as well, but it hasn’t been _dangerous_.

In a way it hasn’t even been lonely, because it’s not as though she’s ever had all _that_ much company on her walks at home. The pattern of walking by herself is familiar enough after all this time. If anything, it’s actually easier, because now she isn’t walking just to pass the time. Now she has a purpose. Now she has a _destination_.

It’s odd to realise that she’s no longer scared of something. To sit and think about something other than putting one tired foot in front of the other, and realise in that moment of silence that somewhere behind her the panic and uncertainty which has hovered around her for her entire life got lost along the way.

She stands up, gathering her things, and walks as close to the edge of the cliff as she dares.

“I’m going to find her!” she screams at the ocean. “I don’t care how far she is, even if she’s at the end of the earth! I’ll just keep marching, as long as it takes. And then I’ll _set her free!_ ”

 

* * *

 

It would be nice, Hitoka thinks as she marches along the following day, if her declaration had had some kind of grand effect, summoning the sympathy of the gods or acting as a beacon for Shimizu’s cousin to return and guide her—maybe even to actually _help_ her instead of just sending her on a quest she still has no plan for actually carrying out.

Instead the weather continues to be grey and uninspiring, and although she’s reached a section of coastline where she can walk along the shore itself again, the beach here is made of large pebbles, not sand. Hitoka hadn’t known it was possible until seeing it, and she’s still not sure she can believe it as she makes her way along, picking as smooth a path as she can despite the unsteady footing. She finds a village near sundown, almost collapsing with relief because she doesn’t want to think about spending another night out in the open.

It’s a small village this time, with only a handful of boats drawn up high on the shoreline. Hitoka eyes them warily. It’s hard work, dragging a fishing vessel so far, and most people wouldn’t bother unless they had reason to believe poor weather was on the way.

She makes her way up the pebbles and shingle to where they merge with the tussocky grass and earth of the land beyond the beach. People are bustling around the scattering of houses—she wonders whether it can even be truly _called_ a village, unless there’s more of it further back behind the hill it’s built into the side of. The hairs on the back of her neck go up even further when she sees people closing shutters over windows and fastening them down, and a woman and her two children inside a fenced off area trying to shoo a few chickens into carrying crates.

“Who are you?” the woman asks abruptly, stopping short as she sees Hitoka approaching. Behind her, her children seamlessly take over the task, darting from side to side and waving their arms to steer them into the cages.

“Greetings, I’m Hitoka Yachi, and I’m travelling along the coast to…to find…uh… my soulmate.”

The half-truth still sits uneasily on her tongue, but she’s getting better at explaining things, really she is, and the important part is that she gets to Shimizu no matter what, right?

“Well a _fine_ time you’ve picked for it, with the typhoon bearing down on us!” the woman says, shaking her head. She turns back to the chickens, clucking and hissing until the last of them scurries inside its temporary home. The older of her children quickly closes the little door behind it, crowing with delight.

“A—a _typhoon?_ ” Hitoka squeaks, feeling her stomach lurch. “There—I—I’ve been travelling for a few days already! There wasn’t a typhoon when I set out. Is… Is there anywhere I can shelter here?” _Is there anywhere in the village that’s safe for anyone?_

“Oh, so you’re here to burden us, is it?” the woman asks. “And us being such rich and wondrous folk as you can see!”

“Oh, oh no, I would _never!_ ” Hitoka cries. “I don’t want to be a burden, I just—”

“Leave her be, Hiraoka-chan,” comes a stern voice. Hitoka flinches, and turns to see a large, well-built man in his forties or fifties standing calmly on the far side of the village’s sole street, arms folded. “She means no harm, and I’ll be mightily surprised if our storm blows so hard as to become a _typhoon_. Quit with your fretting and see to your own brood, I’ll look after this one.”

He gestures for Hitoka to follow him, and leads the way to a cottage set a short way back from the seafront.

“My name is Irihata. We’ll be taking shelter in the other half of the village,” he explains as he goes. “No sense taking chances, what with how exposed this stretch of the coastline is. But if it’s shelter you want, you’ll have to work for it. We don’t do handouts in this village. Help me to fasten these shutters tight, and to carry my valuables to safety, and in return you can hunker down with the rest of us to ride this storm out, and doubtless have a hot meal or two besides.”

“T-thank you!” Hitoka replies, glancing out to sea. The knot of terror in her stomach has eased considerably with the old man’s words, but if it’s a storm severe enough to cause these people to abandon buildings and boats alike, it’s still a danger to anyone in its path. “I can definitely help you secure your home. Do…do you know how bad it will be?”

“The boats saw it just this morning,” he says, shaking his head. “While we were out for the morning catch. They’re fairly monstrous clouds. Moving slow, but heading ashore. We’d time to finish reeling in, but we’ll not chance sticking out the night in _these_ cottages. I’m heading inland to my daughter’s place, and you’re welcome to join me when we’re done here. It’ll be a tight fit with all of us, but she won’t turn you out.”

Despite Hitoka’s help with the shutters and with gathering up his prized possessions—they’re small mementos for the most part, valuable only for their sentimentality—they’re among the last of the villagers to leave the shore-side half of the village. The other part of the village, nestled as it is in the lee of the hills, offers far more safety from the oncoming shore.

A tree-lined dirt path leads up the hill, winding through a narrow gap in the slopes which reach down to lap at the shore. It runs beside a narrow stream, small enough not to need anything other than stepping stones to get across, and Hitoka wishes that she had longer to appreciate it. The village might be much smaller than Karasumi, but it’s very picturesque. As it is, she spends only a few minutes outside before she’s ushered into the little cottage where she will be spending the night. The wind is already picking up as they close the door and barricade it behind them.

The fit is very tight indeed, with three families all crammed into a home considerably smaller than her mother’s. The introductions are brief and chaotic, and after thanking her hosts profusely, Hitoka hunkers down in a corner of the room, trying to intrude as little as possible. The children crowd close to their parents, chattering and fussing, and a baby cries. Despite the danger, the children seem more excited than scared, fearless in their excitement over Hitoka’s sudden arrival and the change in routine. There’s a very different atmosphere among the adults. Hitoka can see her own concern mirrored in their faces, and sends up the same prayers she’s sure everyone else is. Prayers that the fishermen were wrong, that they overestimated the danger. Prayers that it will change course or blow itself out—although Hitoka would prefer the latter. The sole comfort she can take is that she’s far enough from home that Karasumi is unlikely to be affected, no matter _how_ bad it gets.

It grows dark before the full force of the storm hits, roaring and tearing at the air; a cacophony impossible to sleep through. The background howling of the storm is punctuated by several ominously loud creaks and groans, and loud clatterings as debris strikes the wall of the cottage. The roof shudders, and the shutters rattle violently against the bars holding them in place. Rain leaks through each and every gap.

Hitoka clutches the necklace Shimizu gave her, squeezing herself more tightly against the walls in the corner of the room, and prays she still has far enough to go that Shimizu won’t be in danger either. This storm is bad enough to worry _her_ , someone who has grown up with periodic gales that tear down buildings and uproot trees. What it must be like to someone who has always been able to flee to the safety of the deep ocean when storms pass over, she dreads to think.

The roar of the wind peaks some time in the middle of the night, strong enough to rattle not just the shutters but the _walls_ of the wooden cottage as well. Draughts whistle piercingly through every crack and crevice, blowing cold against them from the constant leak of rainwater. It doesn’t matter any more that Hitoka is a stranger, that she only arrived in the village late that afternoon. She’s ushered into the crush of people, to huddle together with the rest while the storm gradually blows itself out.

 

* * *

 

They venture out of the house when the sunlight peeps in through the shutters, clear and bright and calm. Hitoka can scarcely believe that the sky could be so blue after what has happened in the night.

The cottage has survived relatively unscathed, save for minor damage here and there where debris has been blown into the walls. It’s superficial more than structural, although she can see that the roof will need reinforcing before winter comes. The same can be said for most of the other homes in the inland section of the village, although several trees have come down, one landing across the corner of a barn and splintering roof and wall alike.

The path down to the sea, nestled as it is within the river valley, is clogged with debris. There are enough long planks and tree branches tangled together to block it entirely. The sight of it doesn’t paint a good picture of what must have become of the shorefront cottages, or the fishermen’s boats. Every pair of able hands is needed to clear the way. With her small stature and obvious lack of physical strength, Hitoka is instead put to work guarding and entertaining the children while the villagers set to investigating the full extent of the damage.

To pass the time and keep her unexpected charges occupied, Hitoka suggests that they check on the chickens in their cages, and make sure that they have plenty of water and food after surviving such an ordeal. Next they fetch brooms and begin to sweep out the houses one by one, straightening and neatening as they go, and throwing open the shutters to let in the air. One of the houses lost part of its roof to the storm, and Hitoka leaves the youngest children sweeping leaves and twigs into heaps as she takes the older ones inside to sift and sort, gathering clothes and creating makeshift frames out of some of the stray tree branches to help dry them in the summer sun.

By mid-morning the villagers of Enshihoro are all accounted for, mercifully alive and uninjured for the most part, save a few bumps, bruises and scrapes. The latter seem to stem mostly from the clearing efforts. All in all, Hitoka can’t help but be relieved for these people, strangers though they still are.

The news from the shore is less good. The cottages along the front are bare and stark, stripped of their roofs by the wind. One of them has been left lying in pieces, walls blown down into a splintering pile of wreckage. The boats are in disarray too, all present thanks to their position high on the beach, but blown or swept out of alignment by the wind and the waves. Hitoka shudders as the villagers make their way down the path to investigate more closely. From talking to the villagers, she knows Enshihoro to be a lonely, isolated hamlet made viable only by the stream which runs through the centre of the village. If anyone had stayed in the beachside cottages and been injured, she doubts they would have been able to fetch help.

As it is the villagers themselves are safe, but almost half are now homeless. It’s a bitter blow, particularly as they will have to juggle repairing the cottages with sending out the fishing boats. Hitoka chews her lip. It’s not her responsibility, _really_ it’s not. She has to keep going, and rescue Shimizu, and—

—And what will she say when she finds her? That she abandoned these people when she could have helped them? She’ll have to return this way, once Shimizu is freed. How will she ever look them in the eye if she doesn’t help now, when they gave her shelter from a storm this severe? Irihata’s daughter, Kuga Eimiri, even fed her an equal portion of the previous evening’s meal, and now they have lost both livestock and supplies.

Hitoka grits her teeth, and walks over to a group of women assessing one of the cottages. There really is only one choice she can make.

“What more can I do to help?”

 

* * *

 

Hitoka stays for two weeks, cleaning and mending and tidying, and entertaining the younger children while the other adults of the village carry out repairs. She befriends most of her charges, telling them stories from her own village and childhood, and of her adventures at school in Kumanobe. On the third day, with the worst of the logs cleared from the pathways, and passage between both halves of the village fully restored, she takes them down to the beach to play instead. They teach her to skim stones, and show her the sandy area only visible at low tide, where shells wash up and crabs can occasionally be spotted, scurrying along in the shallows.

It becomes a regular habit of theirs—not least of all because the shore is one of the few places they can be truly out of everyone’s way, and with Hitoka to supervise, there are far fewer concerns about letting the smallest children play in the water.

They wade a while, gathering up what shells they can find, and then troop up the pebbles to pool their finds together. The pile starts out quite modest, consisting mostly of fragments and smaller shells, but as the days go by they amass a fairly impressive collection. The marvel of small children seems to be their endless patience for repetitive games, and after a while they have so many that they can’t possibly keep them all. She watches the water as her charges play, wondering what has happened to Shimizu’s cousin, but there’s never a sign of anyone out to sea, in human _or_ seal form. The waves lap on, empty and unimpeded, and eventually she gives up watching.

Hitoka can’t help but feel a little guilty when the harried mothers of the village insist the shells be returned to the ocean as the rubbish they are. After hours of dutiful collection, it’s clearly devastating for the children who’ve come to regard them as treasure. Well, there’s something she can do about _that_ , at least, and she fishes in her bags for her twine.

By the following afternoon each child is the proud owner of a brand new necklace or bracelet, according to their preference. Doubtless her mother would say it was a waste to spend so much time on something the children are unlikely to value, but she can’t bring herself to regret the time or the effort.

“You didn’t have to do that for them,” Hiraoka says later, as her children proudly display their gifts.

“It’s nothing, really,” Hitoka replies. “They’re just something to remember me by, when I leave.”

Hiraoka hesitates, and then sighs. “I want to apologise,” she says. “I misjudged you, that day you wandered up out of nowhere. You’ve done nothing but help us since you arrived, far more than you ever needed to. I wish you the best on your journey. I hope you find that soulmate of yours.”

The comment is well-meant, Hitoka knows it. Despite the woman’s harsh tone on that first day, they’ve grown to be something approaching friends since the storm passed. But it’s a painful reminder, all the same. Shimizu is still trapped somewhere, alone and possibly afraid, and the best Hitoka can hope for when all this is over is that she’ll still see her for seven days every seven years. No matter how she looks at it, how much peace she’s made with her fate, it’s still a very lonely future.

 

* * *

 

The day is overcast but warm when she finally sets out again, laden with food and best wishes from the villagers, and a rough description of the next few towns and villages along the coast. It’s a somewhat tearful farewell—she promises to write in future, and in return the children of the village promise to study hard at their lessons in the town of Mutsunai a little way inland, so that they can actually read what she sends.

It’s strange, setting off once more with only her travelling things for company. After the time she’s spent talking to the inhabitants of Enshihoro and helping them with their repairs, they’ve come to feel like good friends. But the north is calling her—has _been_ calling her every minute that she’s remained in the village. Shimizu needs her, and she can’t afford any more delays.

There’s a large fishing port just a day’s walk from Enshihoro. Passing it means going inland—a broad harbour wall extends both into the ocean and across the land, and the main gate is set further back from the sea along the big coastal road. Of course, knowing that in theory is all very well, but it’s not until she actually _reaches_ Okuhoma the following afternoon that she fully appreciates just how large it really is.

Buildings nestle against the wall—a tall, imposing stone barrier around the inner part of the town—and spread out along the coastal road a ways back from the seafront. The air is filled with the the sound of people: talking, laughing, shouting, working, and the ground trembles beneath her feet as she approaches the gate, carriages and carts rumbling along the cobbled street with passengers and cargo alike.

Hitoka feels _squeezed_ , and makes her way along the road with her head down, hoping she can slip through and out the other side as quickly and easily as possible.

The streets are crowded, and two weeks in a small village are not enough to prepare her for the press of humanity and the noise—or the _smell_. Walking through a town is an entirely different experience to travelling by carriage the way she always had in Kumanobe. Buildings crowd on either side of the road, and she loses sight of the ocean between their high walls and multiple storeys, packed in tight like fish in a crate for market. Warehouses cluster close to the shore, towering over the houses built between them, and if it weren’t for the sun in the sky, Hitoka is sure she would be in very real danger of getting turned about and lost amid the warren of side-streets and alleyways.

She has a purpose though, one which pushes her ever onward. Her sole concession in passing through such a substantial location is to ask for direction to a messengers’ station, so that she can send word to her mother that she’s safe, and progressing with her journey after a short delay.

The _most_ surprising thing about the town, though, is that no one pays her any notice. She fills her water flask at a pump on the northern outskirts just outside the gate, and a few passing children look at her curiously, but Okuhoma must attract enough travellers that one more doesn’t stand out, even if she’s unusual in that she’s on her own. She gets a few more odd looks as she makes her way back down to the seafront though, ones which linger as she looks up at the sky, sighs to herself, and turns back around. The delay chafes, but it really is too late in the day.

She passes the night at an Inn just within the town walls, pressing a blanket over her ears to drown out the sounds of the patrons below her, drinking and revelling as the hours pass by. How do people live in such noisy places? She’d turned back because the afternoon was getting on, and it didn’t make sense to sleep out in the open when she could have a roof over her head, but after trying and failing to sleep in such a noisy environment, Hitoka resolves not to repeat her mistake again.

The sole saving grace to her poor night’s rest is that she leaves the town of Okuhoma with a warm breakfast in her belly, and fresh food for the remainder of the day. The weather is holding too: dry and clear, if a little too hot for her preferences. Carrying her travelling things makes for slow going on warm days, particularly on the exposed seafront. She’s grateful for the wide-brimmed straw hat which she was given in Enshihoro. It’s far more rustic than her mother would have deemed acceptable for a young woman of Hitoka’s heritage to own, let alone _wear_ , but it’s practical. She loves it fiercely.

It also serves her well on cooler days, as she passes a stretch of coastline filled with rock pools that teem with life. They’re not the most pleasant of meals, but Hitoka is not so fussy as to turn her nose up at the fresh seafood on offer in the shallow water. She carries the shellfish in her upturned hat as she walks along, then uses her fire that evening to both cook her catch and, placing her hat nearby, dry the straw out so that it doesn’t rot.

A pattern forms. Hitoka’s pace has slowed from her earliest days walking, settling into a steady, gentle march which slowly eats away at the distance. She passes more villages and towns—large and small—and wide river estuaries which drive her far inland in search of a crossing place. In good weather she doesn’t bother with shelter, spreading out her sleeping things on the open beach beneath the stars. It’s easy to fall asleep to the ocean’s gentle lullaby. In poorer weather she huddles within her tent, as near to the shoreline as she dares, and tells herself that she’ll find Shimizu eventually. She _has_ to.

There’s no sign of Shimizu’s cousin, and as the days begin to merge, Hitoka can’t even keep track of when he would be able to return to land. It’s been far more than a month since she left home—and she’s been held up in more than one place as she’s made her way north. There’s a chance he’s too angry to help her any more than he has already, thinking her delays unwarranted. The worry nags at her, a constant, low-level fear that he’s returned to Shimizu and told her that Hitoka doesn’t care enough to get there faster; that she’s abandoning her to her fate in the mysterious and elusive village in the north. It’s a fear which makes her feel sick, though not so much as the thought of Shimizu suffering, day after day trapped on dry land with a human who stole her _skin_ , stole something so important and personal out of pure selfishness.

She buries it, hardening herself to the thought that at the end of her quest she may still have lost Shimizu as a friend. That however hard she tries, she might still have to spend the rest of her life alone. It doesn’t matter. It’s not important. What’s important is that Shimizu is free—free to choose for _herself_ where she goes and who she visits. Selkies don’t belong on land for long. Not more than seven days in seven years, and it’s been far longer than that now. But there’s nothing Hitoka can do until she finds her. Nothing but keep marching north, day after day, in scorching sun or driving rain.

The worst of the obstacles in her path is the ocean itself. She notices the shoreline curving away to the west for a while before she realises what’s happening—that she’s reached the northernmost part of the country. Land continues on the far side of an open stretch of water clogged with ships of all shape and sizes, but it’s a dark blue smudge on the horizon, blurred with the distance. There will be no bridge to cross a gap this wide.

Hitoka continues until she finds a town, another half-day’s march along the shoreline. The far side of the water is close enough that there _must_ be a ferry. She studied the geography of the country once, long ago at school. She knows that there are large islands to the north which pay tithe and acknowledge His Imperial Majesty. So far she hasn’t run into a village meeting the other selkie’s description, so it must be on this further stretch of land. From the ocean, a narrow strait would look similar to a wide river mouth, surely?

The port town of Furukita is smaller than Okuhoma but louder, somehow fitting more people and noise and bustle into a more compact space. The land is rockier here, mountains giving way only a little to sheer hills which reach down to lap at the sea, and the buildings are squeezed into the narrow gap between their steep slopes and the coast. Hitoka is astonished to realise how far out into the water the town has been extended, sitting on floating pontoons and immense piers which stretch out like arms into the water, snaring ships which dock alongside them to unload their cargoes.

She books passage on a ferry, noting with not a little concern that her supplies are beginning to run low. Peddling a few necklaces helps, but she has to hope that Shimizu isn’t too much further north. Already, she’s come so far that she’s not sure the money her mother gave her will suffice to return home.

The ferry is packed tight with people, pushing and jostling and squeezing against each other. Hitoka feels smothered, crushed into the corners by people used to this lifestyle. She clutches her bags and tries to make herself as small as possible as the ferry pulls out of the port, praying to every god she can think of that she reaches the other side safely. There are so many people on the boat, how can it possibly stay up! What if they’re too heavy, and it tips over and dumps them all in the water? She can swim a little, but she’s never gone so far out into the water that she’s been unable to touch the bottom with her toes, not even with Shimizu there to hold her hands and tell her it’s alright.

_Shimizu,_ she thinks firmly. _I’m doing this for Shimizu. It will all be worth it if I can only set her free._

 

* * *

 

By the time the ferry reaches the far side of the strait, Hitoka feels ill. The boat rocks with every wave and wake it passes through, and while none of other passengers seem to notice the way the deck heaves beneath them, Hitoka can’t think about anything else. If this is what going to sea is like, how do the fishermen stand to do it each day?

She disembarks and makes her way through the streets, clutching at her stomach and praying that she doesn’t have to do that again before finding Shimizu. It’s going to be bad enough going back home. The town of Soutori is similarly loud and filthy as Furikita had been, but it’s hard to mind when she’s simply relieved that the ground remains fixed in place.

A small papermaker’s shop catches her eye as her nausea fades and she stops to buy a wallet of artists’ paper, asking where she might purchase inks to go with them. If her money starts running low, she can always fall back on selling paintings. It won’t work so well in the smaller villages, but she has to come back at some point, and if she _can_ find and rescue Shimizu, her return journey won’t have a deadline. She could afford to stop and paint the scenery as she returns, then sell the paintings in the bigger towns she’ll be passing through.

The northern shore of the strait is flatter than its southern counterpart, and after a night in the town to recover from her first ever trip out on the open water, Hitoka is relieved to find that the beaches are formed of coarse sand and not pebbles and rocks as they had been around Furikita. It’s been a while since she was able to walk along good, honest sandy beaches, and it lifts her spirits. It can’t be far now; can’t be much further until she reaches the village where Shimizu is being held.

She certainly hopes it won’t be, anyway, because the air is growing cooler as the evenings draw on, and the chill lingers a little while past the sunrise each morning. The promise of autumn forever lurks in the shadows of summer, but it’s an altogether more intimidating prospect when she’s travelling like this, alone and exposed to the worst of the weather unless she can beg whichever settlements she passes for shelter. If she’s still walking when the winter comes—if there can possibly be that much of the world—she will be in considerable danger.

But after just one night in her tent, staring out past her fire at the ocean and the night sky, Hitoka finds herself along a rockier stretch of coastline: large boulders are strewn across the shore, and the ground rears up once more into steep hills and jagged edges. The cliffs here are sturdy and old, edges worn smooth by successive winters trying and failing to crumble their rocks into the sea, and even those which have fallen are rounded at the edges by endless tides and storms which wear away at them, filling their cracks with rock pools and fine sand.

She finds the village in the early afternoon, nestled in a ravine-like valley. The river which carved it splits the beach in two, and sheer, steep cliffs rise up on the north side. It has to be it. It _has_ to be.

Hitoka freezes as she takes in the cluster of cottages visible from the shore. She’s come all this way promising to free Shimizu from the man who would keep her on the land against her will, but now what? Now that she’s made it to the village, how exactly does she plan on rescuing her?

Several men are visible, perched atop a stone sea wall as they presumably mend their nets. They don’t appear to have seen her, and why would they? She’s quite a distance from the village yet, and most people don’t approach along the shoreline. There must be a road, somewhere inland.

Thinking fast, Hitoka backtracks a little until a rocky promontory hides the village from view. She’s come so far, she can’t fail now.

There’s no point in just marching into the village. She’s a small woman, and despite her long trek, not particularly strong in comparison with men who haul fish from the ocean each day, and lay down pots for shellfish. She’ll never succeed if she goes in without a plan, and if she fails there will be no one left to help Shimizu at all.

So if she can’t simply _demand_ Shimizu’s skin back, how is she going to fix things? She doesn’t know who has it or how they’re treating Shimizu. Do the whole village know what’s going on? It seems unlikely—stories of selkies and how they drive men to madness and despair are quite widespread. Hitoka has met a lot of people over the course of her journey, and most were superstitious, wary of her at first precisely _because_ she approached each settlement from the seashore. If a man has imprisoned Shimizu here, he can’t possibly have let the entire village know. The superstition about selkies would have caused an uproar.

It must be a secret then, or something which only a few people know about. And if that’s the case, perhaps she can…can _find_ the skin in its hiding place, and sneak it back to Shimizu. If only a handful of people are aware that she could escape into the ocean, they’re less likely to be locking her up or guarding her. But so much of that plan falls to chance, to what-ifs and guesses.

Before she does anything then, she needs to learn the truth of the situation. She needs to see Shimizu, and know that she’s safe. And she needs to do it without letting anyone in the village guess why she has _truly_ travelled so far by herself. A story that she’s seeking a distant soulmate won’t work here. What else can she do?

 

* * *

 

Hitoka spends the rest of the afternoon and the night backtracking and looping around, so that she can approach the village from the north instead of the south. She camps for the evening a little way outside the village, and prepares for the morning with what remains of her twine and seashells.

The sun rises behind thick clouds, and Hitoka can’t help but notice that the leaves have begun to shift in colour, hints of red and yellow creeping in. Their fallen companions crunch underfoot as she packs her camp away, and settles down to pass the morning. If she had travelled from further away, it would have taken her longer to reach the village than this. Past experience tells her that early arrivals cause more of a stir than those who saunter in with the afternoon.

She’s quietly confident about how successful her disguise will be—travelling this long over the summer has worn and faded her once-fine clothes from hard use and sunlight. The broad straw hat given to her in Enshihoro fits the image she wants to convey perfectly. To complete the impression that she is a travelling artist, struggling to make ends meet like those she had seen on the streets of the larger towns as she passed through them, she organises her papers and inks to be more visible in the bag at her side, and spends a little time sketching her cove from memory. She ought to have at least one work to display if anyone asks, and she’s drawn it so many times over the years that its contours fall naturally from her fingertips onto the page.

At last she can wait no longer— the anxiety of not knowing what her reception at the village will be like is overpowering, over _whelming_ . She feels a little sick as she pulls the brim of her hat down over her face and follows the narrow path into the village itself. What will happen when Shimizu sees her? Will she give Hitoka away and expose her before she can help? What— What if she isn’t here at all, and after all this fretting and worrying Hitoka doesn’t even have the right place? It’s not as though Shimizu’s cousin gave her all _that_ detailed a description, and it’s been weeks and weeks since she saw him last, since she set out from home feeling every bit as sick with anxiety and fear as she suddenly feels while walking between unfamiliar houses, nestled on either side of the village’s central street.

Children point and stare, and women pause in their household tasks to watch as she follows the path down beside the stream which flows through the village. There are wooden bridges spanning it here and there— the village is really quite beautiful, bisected along the banks and built up into both hillsides of the valley. With the southerly side of the village possessing gentler, softer slopes than its northern counterpart, trees and flowers grow in profusions between the houses, crammed into tiny cottage gardens and overflowing from window boxes. She can hardly believe that so beautiful a place could harbour such a terrible person as the sort of man who must be holding Shimizu captive.

She’s so convinced that it must be some sort of mistake, in fact, that she’s unprepared for the moment she turns a corner and there in one of the gardens—dressed in a faded black gown which falls to just a short way above her ankles, with an old, tatty shawl draped across her shoulders—is Shimizu herself.

 

* * *

 

Hitoka stops dead, caught between two opposing instincts: to flee the village before she can be recognised and her plan dashed to pieces, and to run over and embrace her friend instead. She’s missed her so much! And, _oh_ , Shimizu looks so unhappy and worn! She looks tired, so tired, with the light gone out of her eyes and an ashy, shadow tint to her skin. Hitoka wants to hold her and tell her it’s okay, that she’ll set her free so she can return to the water and be where she ought to be.

Only her terror that Shimizu will shun her for taking so long holds her back, and gives her the precious seconds of indecision she needs to stick to her plan. She can’t let anyone find out she and Shimizu know each other! If the villagers learn that, they’ll get suspicious about them talking, and she’ll never be able to get her free!

But how can she get a message to her to let her know? She can’t just set up an easel and start watching the house. Her plan to pose as an artist will hopefully give her some freedom, but it still relies on the villagers letting her stay, and granting permission for her to paint the buildings. As it is, she’ll probably need to conduct most of her searches for Shimizu’s skin while everyone else is asleep.

The solution presents itself neatly enough though. Almost _too_ neatly. After walking past Shimizu a little way with her head well down—she tells herself she’ll come back later, certain the men and women of this village must be like those of so many others she has passed through, gathering at a tavern each night to drink and sing together—she is spotted by a youngish man with a shaven head, walking up the hill as she goes down.

“Hello there, stranger,” he says, and Hitoka quickly bows a greeting. “What brings you to Nekomizu?”

She smiles as she straightens up, clenching the fingers of her left hand into a tight, painful ball to keep her senses alert. “Greetings,” she says, against the all the odds ready with the speech she had prepared in the morning. “I’m an artist, travelling south to the bigger cities, but the beauty of your village called to me and I couldn’t pass it by. I…I’m afraid I have fallen on harder times as I journey along the road, but I have jewellery to sell, if anyone would be interested, and enough coin that I’m looking for a place I might stay a night or two. The road is a wearying place to be, and I would love to capture your village on paper before moving on.”

There’s a short silence before the man replies, as though he’s sizing her up, but then a wide grin breaks out across his tanned features. “Why, I’m not surprised!” he says, nodding. “You’ve found yourself in the prettiest village in all the world. Paradise on earth, by all accounts.”

They chat for a minute or so more, the man introducing himself as Kai Nobuyuki, and Hitoka seizes the opportunity to plant the idea that she might wander the village aimlessly at first, looking for vantage points to draw. When he sees the thick sheaf of paper in the satchel at her side, the man seems only too happy give her his blessing, and to point her in the direction of the village’s tavern, which has a room or two that might interest her.

“We don’t get much by way of visitors, I will admit, but those we _do_ have are well-catered to.” he says proudly. “I’m sure the Shibayamas will have you covered, but if you need me for anything, I live down on the seafront, the third cottage from the end.”

Hitoka smiles. “Thank you very much for you help, Kai-san,” she says, glad for both the information that he’s given _and_ the fact that, if he lives down along the shore, he can’t be the person who stole Shimizu’s skin. Kai seems nice, at first glance, and she’s not quite sure how she would have coped if she’d found out he was capable of something so despicable. She’s not quite sure how she’s going to manage when she meets the man who _is_ , but in all likelihood the longer she has to prepare herself for it the better, or she might break her cover and _hit_ him.

The thought shocks her as she walks down the hill, taking in the beauty of the cottages and their window baskets. She’s never once considered herself a violent person, or someone who has trouble controlling her emotions. She’s always been first to shy away from those sorts of interactions and people—even those who are merely quite loud and lively, such as Tanaka-san back at home. But the thought of seeing the man who took poor Shimizu and left her looking like a shadow of herself, bowed and wilted by the sun and the dry land beneath her bare feet? It leaves her in a cold rage.

She clenches her teeth, and pauses in the centre of a wooden bridge over Nekomizu’s central rushing brook, collecting herself before she ventures into the village’s tavern. It won’t do her any good to arrive in a poor mood.

_I’ve got to stay calm,_ she tells herself. _It’s no good coming all this way and failing now._

The tavern itself is a beautiful, two-storied building set a little way back from the row of fishermen’s cottages along the shore. The Shibayama family live in the upper part, and offer her a room beside them instead of in the usual guest suite on the ground floor—placed there anticipating their visitors to be rather more loud and inebriated as they conclude their evenings—but Hitoka brushes their concerns aside. In a hopefully believable rush she explains that as an artist she often rises to draw the sunrise, and that a ground floor room suits her perfectly for that purpose.

It’s true enough after all, and it’s a far less suspicious excuse than that she wants to overheard the locals gossipping as they drink of an evening, and have an easy way to slip outside and search the village as they sleep.

Hitoka remains in the lower part of the village for the remainder of the day, conspicuously carrying her satchel of paper and inks around, and sitting down on the shorefront to sketch the sea view. The villagers are bound to be curious about the newcomer in their home after all, and she’s vindicated in her plan when some wander over to take a look at her work.

Having this sort of attention is nerve-wracking—she’s never had an audience when drawing or painting before—but it confirms her reasons for staying in the village in their eyes. The more people who gossip about the new artist visiting to paint their beautiful home, the less suspicious she will seem.

The whole act makes her feel like a character from the kinds of stories Takeda-sensei would tell her and the other children when they were small. His lessons are certainly where she’s drawn a lot of her inspiration for the charade. There’s even a kind of thrill to it all, hidden beneath the thick knot of fear which sits low in her stomach, cramping her as she sits and sketches the shape of the rocks behind the tiny fleet of boats.

Hitoka returns to the tavern as the sun sets, and eats her meal in the corner of the room. It affords her a good look at the villagers who come in to drink and socialise. After a little while Kai walks over and asks her how she’s getting along, which is sweet but frustrating, because behind him come another group of men who earn a disapproving frown from the young man serving drinks—the Shibayamas’ son—and Hitoka can’t imagine for a minute that a village as lovely as Nekomizu has very many people who could provoke that sort of response. Surely one of them has to be the man who stole Shimizu’s skin?

She keeps her head down after Kai spots some friends and goes to drink with them instead, trying to listen in to the conversations of about three groups of people at once. It doesn’t really work all that well, the words blurring together, and none of what she _can_ pick out seems to be particularly fruitful. The hour grows late. Hitoka is about to go to her room and settle down for a nap while the rest of the locals finish their evening, when someone slams their tankard down onto a table nearby. A man bursts out laughing. Glancing over at the bar, Hitoka notices the owner’s previously mild-mannered son watching whatever is going on with narrowed eyes.

“And I _told_ you!” a man shouts, clearly having drunk more alcohol than is good for him. “I’m not telling you my secret! You can all pester me as you likes, I’ll be taking it to my grave!”

Hitoka cowers in her seat, wincing at the man’s volume. Why does he need to be so loud? No one else in the tavern is shouting. But she’s curious despite her fear. Steeling herself, she leans back, slouching a little so that she can edge her chair closer to the group without anyone noticing. The conversation seems  to be centred around the exploits of one man in particular—she hears them referring to him as ‘Himura-kun’ and ‘Himura-san’, but never by anything which seems to be a given name or nickname, as many of his friends seem to go by.

She doesn’t have to listen long to know that he’s the one she’s looking for, and the longer she sits there the more uneasy she gets. He doesn’t seem as though he’s particularly well-liked by his drinking companions, and the Shibayamas’ son keeps looking in the group’s direction, as though he’s waiting for some kind of problem to develop. The thought that Shimizu might be trapped in the same house as someone actually dangerous fills Hitoka with dread.

The conversation edges around Shimizu herself a few times, although it seems that no one in the village knows her true name. The mystery of her presence in the village only adds to her apparent value in the eyes of Himura’s friends, which already seems to be high thanks to her beauty and and quiet, gentle, good temper.

Hitoka can’t listen to any more. She feels sick with worry. _I need to find her,_ she tells herself firmly. _If they’re all in here drinking, it’s the perfect time to let her know I’m here._

She gathers a little attention as she lurches away from her table and practically runs to her room, but the men seem to be quite drunk already, and don’t pay that much notice for long. Hitoka sends up a prayer that they will keep drinking until their legs turn to jelly, and plots her next move as she changes into clothes which will make for easier movement than her travelling dress.

It’s only a small drop to the ground from her room’s window and she’s used to the dark by now. From her casual exploration earlier in the day she can find her way up the hill even in the gloom, and the hour is late enough that most of the villagers have settled down for the night, closing shutters and guttering candles. She’s glad for the last bit of twilight as she makes her way along the streets, crossing and re-crossing the stream as she winds her way up to the house where she saw Shimizu earlier that day.

The windows are dark, and the shutters left wide open. Hitoka clambers over the fence and calls into the opening, ducking down immediately afterward in case anyone else should hear her. She doesn’t dare use Shimizu’s name, instead calling out her own:

“Hey, it’s me! Hitoka-chan! I’m here!”

There’s no sound from the dark house the first time she calls, or the second or third. Could she be asleep? Or—

Hitoka curses herself. Shimizu isn’t some helpless maiden like in Takeda-sensei’s old stories. The man who kidnapped her is away, drinking with his friends and confident that she can’t escape because he’s holding her sealskin hostage. Why would she remain in such a high, lonely place when she could wander the shore instead? She’s wasted her chance to find her, too busy thinking about how to avoid the villagers’ suspicions to use her brain.

Shaking her head at her own foolishness, Hitoka clambers over the garden wall onto the street and makes her way back down the hill. If she hurries—if she’s lucky—perhaps she can still find Shimizu before Himura finishes drinking, and explain the plan.

 

* * *

 

The ocean is peaceful at night, but dark. Clouds obscure the moon and stars, and the fishermen have turned in early, leaving the shorefront absent of lights. All except a small, yellow glow past the last of the buildings, down on the mixed shingle and sand.

Hitoka hurries, seeing the light. It has to be her, it just _has_ to be.

“Hey!” she whispers into the darkness as she stumbles across the dark ground to the beach. “Is…are you…”

The light jerks, swinging back and forth in the air, and she hears a gasp from nearby. The sound carries so well in the clear night air that Shimizu could be right next to her as she exclaims:

_“Hitoka-chan!”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Following the purge, I've been a lot more active on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/TottWritesFic) than [Tumblr](https://tottwritesfanfic.tumblr.com/), but I still have a presence on both sites if peeps want to give me a shout or follow my ramblings!


	5. Chapter 5

The light drops, its candle guttering as the lantern hits the ground. In the sudden darkness Hitoka hears Shimizu curse. Footsteps scrunch on the sand, hasty and uncoordinated.

She staggers towards the sound, arms out in front to feel her way. There _is_ light but it’s distant and weak, a glow in the black void behind them from Nekotanimizu’s buildings.

“I’m here,” she whispers, reaching around as she hears the lamp clatter. “Where are you?”

“Oh, _Hitoka-chan_ , how did you find me?” Shimizu asks, and her voice is enough to guide Hitoka in the dark. Her fingers brush against fabric and scant seconds later she’s in Shimizu’s arms, held tighter than she ever remembers them embracing before.

“I missed you so much,” Shimizu whispers. “All these years, and then the last few months…”

“I missed you too,” Hitoka sobs, unable to hold back her tears. “I waited and waited, and then you didn’t come and I worried—”

“It’s okay,” Shimizu says, holding her. “It’s okay.”

The arms around her loosen, Shimizu’s hands brushing lightly against her until she has Hitoka’s face in her hands. Hitoka’s heart is beating so fast in her chest she’s sure the world can hear it, because she’s _here_ , she’s here with Shimizu, and her fate may well be cursed by the gods, and Shimizu might still be trapped on land, but right in this moment she’s _found_ her: found the woman who completes her, and she never wants to let go, never wants them to be apart again.

Shimizu’s forehead comes to rest against her own, their noses pressed lightly together.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” Shimizu murmurs. “When I got trapped, I—”

Hitoka clutches at her dress. “I couldn’t let it happen,” she says, the words halfway between sobs and whispers. She can feel tears coursing down her cheeks. “When I found out, I had to come and help. Your cousin, I… I don’t know his name. He came to our beach and he told me someone… someone…”

“Himura-san stole my skin,” Shimizu says darkly, and Hitoka can feel the movement as she shudders. “The land is so _dry_ , Hitoka-chan. I come down as often as I can and I wade like we used to, but I can’t—I can’t _leave_. Not like this.”

“It’s okay!” Hitoka replies. “I’m here now. I’m going to get it back. I…you can’t let anyone know we’ve met before, okay? I have a plan. I won’t let that man keep you here. I’d rather die than let that happen.”

“Hitoka-chan, no! It’s too dangerous. I’ve been looking myself, and I can’t find it. He’s hidden it too well, and I’m too valuable to him as a bride for him to set me free.”

“I don’t care. I made a _promise_ ,” Hitoka says, reaching up to feel Shimizu’s face. Her cheeks are wet with tears, and she brushes them away as gently as she can. “I promised I’d set you free.”

They stand together in the dark for a long time, hands clasped, their heads pressed together, relishing in the _nearness_ of each other, after so long spent apart. At length they hear the remaining villagers making their way out of the tavern and staggering back to their homes.

Reluctantly, Hitoka pulls her head back and turns to watch the lights of the distant lanterns as they drift up the valley.

“Do…do you need to get back?” she asks. “Won’t he mind that you’re gone?”

Shimizu sniffs with disdain. “He’ll be too drunk to notice, probably, but even if he does, he’s too cowardly to say anything,” she says. “That’s the one blessing about him. He says he fell in love with my beauty, that he couldn’t help but take my skin so I would stay with him, but all he really cares about is what everyone _else_ thinks. He won’t risk anyone finding out that I’m a selkie, for fear they will turn him out of the village. I… I heard some of the stories they tell about my people. I use them. I tricked him into believing that if he angers me I can curse him, so he leaves me alone as long as I clean the house and don’t tell anyone what I am.”

Without light Shimizu’s face is impossible to see, but there’s no real need. Hitoka can hear by her voice what an ordeal the last few months have been, and the toll they have taken.

“I’m so sorry,” Hitoka moans. “It took me too long to get here! I should have come _sooner_ ; I should have known—”

“Hitoka-chan, _no_ ,” Shimizu says, leaning forward to press their foreheads together again. “I’ll find my skin eventually. I’ll be free in the end. You should go home, before he realises you know who I am. _What_ I am.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Hitoka says. “Not now. I’ll make things right. I—I can follow him, find out where he’s hidden it, and get it back!”

Shimizu’s hands clutch at her, pulling her into another fierce embrace. “Please,” she says. “Just stay safe, whatever you do.”

“I will,” Hitoka replies, holding her just as tightly. “I promise. I don’t want to lose you now, after I only just found you again.”

They stay together on the beach, sitting carefully down beside each other in the dark. One by one the lights behind them go out until the darkness is complete, and the only sound is the surf in front of them, but Hitoka can’t bring herself to be scared. Can’t find any fear in her heart all the while she’s sat beside Shimizu, hands clasped together and her head resting on the selkie’s shoulder. Shimizu’s head rests in turn upon her own, and despite it all, despite everything she still has to do to set things right, it’s the best feeling in the world.

Finally, after all these years, after all the weeks and months of searching, she’s _found_ her. Found her and Shimizu isn’t even angry that she took too long, or that Hitoka can’t fix things right away. She’s not hurt, either—she’s so _clever_ , tricking the person who’s holding her hostage and keeping as much freedom as she can.

Shimizu’s clever and she’s alive and she’s _here_ , and as they sit together in the dark on a strange beach hundreds of miles from home, Hitoka feels invincible.

 

* * *

 

Tiredness catches up with them eventually. They dose side by side, drifting in and out of sleep in silence as the waves lap at the sand. The air grows cold around them but Hitoka has her sturdy travelling clothes on to keep her warm. Apparently Shimizu has been spending her nights on the seashore for some time now too, because she has a thick cloak which she wraps about them both, commenting that it’s far warmer with the two of them than it was when she waited on the shore alone.

“Is that how he knew?” Hitoka asks at one point.

“Hmm?” Shimizu replies, sleepily.

“Your cousin,” Hitoka says. “The one who found me, and told me where you were. He’s… I thought that he was angry, that he blamed me for all of this. I think he might still be angry, because it took me so long to get here.”

“He worries,” Shimizu says. “He found me after I didn’t return to my family. I meet him here sometimes, further along the beach just after the fishermen leave in the mornings. It…helps, to have someone to talk to.”

Hitoka shifts, nestling closer to the tall woman beside her. “Did…do you want to talk now?” she asks. “To me, I mean. A _lot’s_ happened, since we were together before.”

“It has,” Shimizu replies, but she falls silent after that, and says nothing more until the sky in front of them shifts almost imperceptibly from pure darkness, the first herald of the new day.

“I should return,” she says, sighing as the world emerges into greyscale form around them. “I don’t want Himura to find out that we know each other, Hitoka-chan. He won’t hurt me—I know how to keep him calm—but if he finds out that you know…” Her face gets a pinched, fretful expression.

Hitoka wants to smooth the wrinkles in her brow away, and reassure her that everything is fine, but she knows better. If it’s getting light, the fishermen will be waking up, and soon they will emerge from their houses nearby. With their eyes long accustomed to the dark, they can make out the shapes of the buildings in the pre-dawn air. They’re close enough that anyone looking out onto the beach would see them immediately.

“Okay,” she says softly. “But I’ll come back tonight. I’ll come back _every_ night, until you’re free. I promise.”

Shimizu smiles softly, and in that moment Hitoka fully realises what feeling in her heart has been this whole time, what that constant ache has meant—what it _still_ means. Somewhere along the years, creeping up on her without her even noticing, she’s fallen in love.

She’s fallen in love with a selkie, and she’d give everything to keep that perfect smile upon her face.

 

* * *

 

Hitoka returns to the tavern in the pre-dawn light, and creeps back into her room. She sleeps far later than she ever has before, rousing some time in the middle of the morning and realising with a shock that she needs to get to work. If Shimizu hasn’t been able to find her sealskin, Himura must have hidden it somewhere he knows she wouldn’t or couldn’t go, which means it’s up to _Hitoka_ to find out. And in order to have the freedom to do that, she has to convince the whole village that she’s here to paint the scenery, and nothing more.

She spends the next few days focused on that illusion, although her paintings are real enough. Nekomizu is without question a beautiful place, and it’s easy to lose herself in the scenery at times. She’s grown used to attracting an audience, too, and the children of the village who gather round her are entertained by both her grand pictures—drawn in pencil and ink to be painted later—and the rough sketches she creates for them using scraps of wood and charcoal. More than once she sees Shimizu out of the corner of her eye, watching her as she goes about her business in the village.

They meet every night, creeping down to the beach as soon as they dare and catching up on seven years’ worth of life experiences. Hitoka tells Shimizu about the people she met on her journey north, and the years she spent wandering the coastline, painting and collecting mementos of the ocean. In return, Shimizu tells her of the deep ocean currents, and lands she glimpsed far to the north and south, and even all the way across the ocean itself to the east.

The nights pass as quickly as the days go slowly. Each evening Hitoka waits in the tavern to listen out in case Himura gives a clue about the location of Shimizu’s sealskin, but the topic never seems to arise, and by the time she wanders out to her room under the guise of going to sleep, he seems well into drinking the night away, slurring his words and singing folk songs with the other young men of the village.

To begin with, Hitoka is too glad to see Shimizu again to mind that she’s getting nowhere, but it can’t last. She can’t stay forever without attracting notice, and already some of the villagers she talks with the most have remarked that she must find their village truly inspirational, to spend so long capturing each and every one of its beauty spots on paper.

Something has to change. If Himura isn’t going to talk about where the sealskin has been hidden, she’s going to have to follow him more closely and hope he _leads_ her to it. She can’t believe that he wouldn’t check something so valuable to him, at least now and then.

That night, she stays in the tavern longer than usual, sketching by candlelight as the men chatter nearby. When she finally retires for the night, instead of stealing away to the shore as she would love to, she waits outside the tavern for the drinkers to leave.

In her entire time at the village, she has made certain never to speak to the man who is holding the woman she loves prisoner. There is nothing she wishes to say to him which she can afford to put into words—not until Shimizu is free, at least. But the other advantage of this is that it means the man is unfamiliar with her voice, so when he starts drunkenly staggering up the hill, Hitoka follows him, a plan forming in her mind as she goes.

The cottage he shares with Shimizu is near the top of the hill, so as the other men of the village peel off to their respective homes, Himura continues alone, walking in a crooked, unsteady line with his lantern swinging from side to side. He’s so drunk that Hitoka has little trouble keeping behind him, padding softly on bare feet to avoid him hearing her boots.

 _“The sealskin,”_ she whispers when she’s sure they’re out of earshot of his friends. “' _Ware the sealskin,”_

Himura stops in his tracks, staggering forward a pace or two and almost stumbling over as he turns to look for her. But Hitoka has disappeared, ducking between two buildings with her heart racing, drumming a fierce tattoo in her chest.

“Who’s there?” he calls, and she uses the opportunity to hop over the wall of a cottage garden, sneaking ahead of him.

“ _The ocean is calling her,”_ she whispers, ducking down behind the wall as she finishes talking. While he stumbles around again, demanding that she show herself, she doubles back and crosses the road behind him.

She pauses outside a house and whispers: “ _The sea demands her return,_ ” before scuttling forward. In his drunken state he doesn’t seem to see the movement as she slips into a gap between the houses ahead of him. When his back is turned, she crosses the road once more.

_“You cannot escape the selkie’s curse.”_

Himura swears, and peering over the wall she is sheltering behind, Hitoka can see panic in the man’s eyes.

“’ _Ware the skin,_ ” she whispers again, dragging out the final word. “’ _Ware, ‘ware!_ ”

This time he says nothing, just turns and runs. His legs are shaky, drunkenness and fear leaving him continually on the cusp of falling down, but experienced reflexes steer him safely up the hill, and out of the babbling stream as he crosses the many small bridges. Hitoka watches with delight as he staggers straight past his cottage and continues uphill. Has her plan worked? Surely it has to have worked— why else would he run past his own home unless he had stashed the sealskin somewhere else and was heading to check it?

She follows, keeping to the shadows as best she can in case the fear and panic sober him too quickly. He continues past the outer houses of the village, taking to the road which leads up to the big farmstead, and the outlying farmers’ homes which she’s never gone so far as to see. A short way on he stops abruptly, counting something. When he turns off into the trees, holding the lantern higher to illuminate a wider space around himself, Hitoka knows she’s won.

The sealskin is buried in a shallow ditch a short way into the woods, wrapped in what she hopes is oilcloth and with a rock placed over the top to mark the location. Hitoka hides behind a tree as Himura sets the lantern down beside himself and digs in the dirt with his bare hands. She hardly dares to breathe when he finally barks out a laugh, and calls into the night air:

“A nice try, that!”

Her heart stops. Does he know she’s there? Has he seen hear, or heard her? Has he made the connection?

“You’ll not get her back that easy!” he goes on, words still slurred with drink. Hitoka closes her eyes, sure she’s about to be caught when he adds: “You’re too far away, little curse, and she’s mine, you hear! Mine! Ain’t no one going to find it, ain’t nothing taking my ocean girl away!”

There’s a patting sound, and Hitoka risks a peek around the tree, watching as Himura carefully scoops the earth back over the sealskin and pats it down, before rolling the rock into its former resting place.

“ _Gods_ ,” he mutters to himself, groaning. “I need to lay off the drink.”

She doesn’t move as he gets to his feet, reaching down with one hand bracing himself on a tree, and snatching up the lantern. She waits, motionless in her hiding place, until Himura and his light disappear into the distance, and the sound of his angry muttering and cursing turns to silence. She waits in the darkness a while longer, trying not to panic at the thought of being alone in a wood at night. She’s heard stories about the danger of such places time and again, and seldom ventured far into clusters of trees.

At last she can take it no more. Shaking, shivering, she reaches down to fetch out her candle, carried without its lantern so that no sound could give her away. A spark from her tinderbox and it’s alight, providing just enough glow for her to work.

She slowly rolls back the stone, grunting with the effort of moving it, and digs away the earth. The sealskin is wrapped in oilcloth as she had hoped, and she grabs the bundle with shaking arms, peeling back just enough to confirm what it is and no more before hugging it close to her chest. Her heart races; her thoughts are riotous, chaotic. She forces herself to take seven slow, steady breaths before opening her satchel and tucking the bundle as far inside as it will reach. Next she fetches the candle from where she had wedged it in the ground. Holding it carefully in one hand, shielding its flame from the wind with the other, she slowly follows Himura’s heavy footprints out of the trees and back to the road.

It’s late enough that there are no lights on in the village any more. Late enough that it can’t be all that long until morning, but the stars overhead and a sliver of moon offer comfort as she makes her way back down the valley in which Nekomizu nestles. She blows out the candle before passing Himura’s house, giving herself a full minute for her eyes to adjust to the dark before feeling her way past. The black void of the open shutters let her believe that Shimizu is still on the beach. Hitoka feels a pang of guilt as she realises she must be wondering where Hitoka has got to.

It’s long after their usual meeting time, not far until the dawn, but Hitoka knows the temporary concern she must be giving Shimizu is worth it. She’s _done it!_ She’s really done it—she’s freed her, and she can go _home_ again, and see Mama and everyone else, and they’ll have their part-time future together, imperfect and insufficient as it might be. It doesn’t seem real.

Hitoka thinks about everywhere she has been as she walks down the hill, re-lit candle held in one hand. She picks her way across the bridges and marvels at how far she has come, how much more she has done than she ever believed possible. And it’s real. She’s done it. She’s achieved the thing she set out to do—the thing she had believed impossible.

Shimizu’s light is still on the beach. She creeps past the fishermen’s cottages, biting back a yawn and thanking all the gods for her fortune. The hour is late, after all, and she’d been a little worried that Shimizu would have returned to Himura’s house by now, despite the signs to the contrary.

“Hey,” she calls softly, stepping down onto the sand. “It’s me.”

“Hitoka-chan!” comes Shimizu’s hushed voice, high and concerned. “What happened? I was so _worried_ about you!”

“I’m okay,” she says, smiling as she draws close enough to see Shimizu’s pale face in the dark, candlelight reflected in her eyes.

She stops beside her, and sets the candle down on the sand, pressing it deeply enough that it stays upright.

Shimizu’s eyes widen when Hitoka reaches into her satchel. “H-Hitoka? Is… is that…”

Hitoka nods. “It is,” she says, beaming. “I promised I’d get it back for you, didn’t I?”

But the strangest look comes over Shimizu’s face as she holds it out, pulling open the oilcloth. Shimizu’s eyes widen, pupils narrowing down to a point, and she _stiffens_.

“Hitoka,” she says again, and her arms raise, mechanically. “Hitoka, _give it to me_.”

Hitoka blinks, startled by Shimizu’s deep voice and sudden demand. Before she can even move Shimizu has seized the skin, snatching it close and turning away. She spins as she unfolds it, shaking it out and groaning against it, muttering _“My poor skin, my poor skin…”_ as though Hitoka isn’t even there.

“Shimizu— ”

But before she can finish her sentence, almost before she’s finished Shimizu’s name, the woman is gone, running for the ocean. Hitoka hears the splash as she hits the water and cries out, but it’s too late. The sounds of Shimizu’s passage through the water are already fading into silence.

She’s gone.

 

* * *

 

Hitoka sits on the dark beach alone, watching shadows from the lantern Shimizu left behind dance across the sand. In front of her, the horizon begins to pale.

She feels numb. All the joy is gone, fled with the woman she loves. The woman who she can never be with for long enough. The ocean will always come between them, stealing her away. And don’t the legends say that once a selkie finds their skin, they will never return to the place they were held captive? Her only hope now is to make the long journey home and hope that, in seven years time, they can be reunited once more.

At length the fishermen find her, still sat out on the sand as they make ready to put to sea.

“Hai there,” one of the younger men says, walking over. “Are…are you alright?”

Hitoka shakes her head. “I’ll be fine, though,” she says. “I’ll get over it.”

“Uh… did something happen to you, then?”

A familiar voice interrupts: “Nothing you need to worry about, Inouka,” Kai says, waving the man away. “I’ll take care of it.”

He settles down onto the sand a short distance away. Hitoka wonders at that, idly, but can’t muster up the energy to feel truly curious about his presence.

“Not all of us sleep quite so soundly as the majority of the village,” he remarks at last. “I’ve known you two were meeting down here for a while now, but last night…” He sighs. “I’d no notion of what was truly going on with Himura-san. Or—well, I suppose her name isn’t ‘Himura’ at all, is it.”

Hitoka shudders. “ _No_ ,” she says firmly. “Her name—” She falters. “It’s perfect. _She’s_ perfect. But now she’s gone, and I won’t see her for seven years.”

“Love hurts, sometimes,” Kai says. “It’s not easy. They say we each have a soulmate, a perfect match, but that doesn’t automatically mean a perfect life together, free from worry. The gods are powerful, but not _that_ powerful, I think. Still, you…It’s quite the thing you did, setting her free that way. I’m sure she’s grateful, and that she cares in her own way. But selkies—” He falters. “I’m sorry.”

Hitoka says nothing. Kai’s words wash over her, and she can’t even be sure she really understands them. He talks a little while longer as the other fishermen make ready the small fleet, but eventually he’s called away and leaves her alone on the sand. She has no idea what else he might have said to her in that time. The words were meaningless: empty sounds without purpose.

The boats set sail, and silence returns to the beach. Hitoka gazes out to sea, unmoving. She knows she should get up, knows she should return to the tavern and begin to pack her things. There’s nothing left for her in Nekomizu, and even its beauty chafes at her in Shimizu’s absence.

But she can’t move. It’s still too soon, still too raw. She’d had Shimizu in her arms—they were _together_ , and Shimizu seemed so happy! And then the moment she got her skin back, she fled without even saying goodbye? Without even expressing any _thanks_. It hurts. It hurts so much.

The pain rushes in to fill the void in her chest, and Hitoka weeps.

 

* * *

 

The Shibayamas’ son is sent to find her, eventually. He’s quiet, and shy, and Hitoka has never been able to help but wonder how he manages to transform into the determined man he becomes behind the bar, ordering patrons out if they get too rowdy, and staring down hardened drunks without any sign of fear.

Her first awareness of him is the timid: “Yachi-san?” he asks from somewhere behind her, followed by a pattering of feet as he runs down the beach. “Yachi-san! You must be freezing—have you been out here all night? Here, let me help you up. We’ve got hot soup back at the tavern, that will really help.”

“Yes,” she says absently, and lets him haul her to her feet.

She follows, mechanically, back to the tavern, and even manages to eat. The food sits in her stomach uncomfortably, but rationally she knows it is helping. She knows this burning pain will pass, every bit as it has before. The worst of it will ebb away to a steady but manageable ache. She’ll move past it, move on with her life, and in seven years perhaps they’ll see each other again, and she’ll get a brief reprieve. It’s not enough—seven days in seven years will _never_ be enough—but she’s known that all along. She’s known from the start that Shimizu would return to the sea, so why had she expected differently just because Shimizu had been imprisoned on the land for so long?

By the afternoon she feels more like herself, albeit a quieter version. The irony, of course, is that around her the village is erupting into chaos. Himura has noticed the absence of his so-called-wife, and after Hitoka’s deception, believes that somehow she has used magic or a curse to free herself from him. People bustle in and out of the tavern all afternoon talking about, about how they had no idea the man was fool enough to kidnap a selkie by stealing her skin.

“…Buried it in the _woods_ , he said!” someone exclaims over their meal, chatting excitedly with their neighbour.

Hitoka keeps her head down, and says nothing. There’s no surprise that the whole village has turned into a fountain of gossip. _Everyone_ knows selkie stories—or they _think_ they do, at any rate, and Hitoka is certain that they’ll have grown and warped again by the end of the day. People are already talking about the whispers which Himura had heard before his ‘selkie wife’ escaped, and how he was clearly being driven mad by the curse. Hitoka wonders if, in time, she might even be able to find the story funny.

She ought to be more angry at the man. She _is_ angry at him. She hates him, hates everything he has done to Shimizu and, by extension, to herself. It’s better if she never speaks to him again because she’s not sure if she could contain her fury were they ever to end up face to face. But right now, the pain of losing Shimizu again is too great. It’s blotted out everything, and she has to give herself time to move past it.

It’s futile perhaps, but she decides to wait a week. Selkies are ruled by sevens, after all, and if there’s any hope of Shimizu returning—remote and faint as it might be—it will be once a week has passed. Hitoka knows she’s being foolish, but there’s a long journey ahead of her, and winter will make it far less pleasant than her voyage north. She doesn’t want to leave until she’s extinguished every last hope.

On a practical note, she has pictures to finish, too. The shine might have left the village for her, but there is no denying that Nekomizu makes a perfect backdrop, one which will likely be quite popular when she needs to sell her artwork at the big towns further south. Perhaps, now that she doesn’t need to scour the coastline, she can even travel part of the way by carriage to get home faster.

The whole village knows the story of the selkie girl by now, but Hitoka only tells two people her part in it: the Shibayamas’ son Yuuki, and the fisherman Kai. Shibayama listens with wide, almost disbelieving eyes and regards her with awe, but Kai hardly seems surprised at all.

“I suspected something,” he says. “Himura has never been particularly charming, and then one day he goes for a long walk and returns having rescued a beautiful woman from an undisclosed danger, and announces that they have fallen in love. It didn’t make much sense at the time, but we’d no other explanation which fitted other than what he said, and the selkie herself never said a word against him.”

“What will happen to him now?” Hitoka asks, voice quavering. “Shi— The selkie said he was very worried about what people thought of him.”

“She was right,” Kai replies. “As far as I know he’s already packing his things. He has an aunt a little way inland. I expect he’ll start over with her. Good riddance, I say. He’s been nothing but trouble these last few years, and in all honesty, since meeting the selkie he’s been worse.”

“Selkies aren’t cursed,” Hitoka says firmly, staring him down and waiting for him to disagree.

Instead, he simply laughs. “Oh, I believe you, don’t fear there. I suspect it was a combination of guilt and infatuation on his part. Your selkie was a beautiful woman—we could all see that—but no decent man would consider that an excuse to do what he did. Why, you love her yourself, and you did everything in your power to set her free. I think, on balance, that perhaps there’s a grain of truth in the selkie stories which got twisted around over time. There _is_ a curse of sorts—but it’s on those who would put their own desires above those of another, wouldn’t you say?”

Hitoka nods, feeling a little ashamed that she’d instantly assumed the worst of a man who has only ever been friendly and kind. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I know I’m not the best company right now.”

Kai claps her on the back. “You’re grieving,” he says. “Never mind that she lives—you’re grieving the life you cannot have together. The life you saw dangled in front of you.”

“No!” Hitoka cries. “No, I don’t _want_ that life! Couldn’t you see how… She always looked so _sad_ , and wilted. She never smiled, and her skin was ashy, and it was _wrong!_ She didn’t belong on the land, and I could never dream of keeping her here. That’s not a future we could _ever_ have. I just… I only get to see her every seven years, and this time it was all wrong. I wish we could have had our time being really _happy_ together, that’s all.”

 

* * *

 

Hitoka spends each long day in the tentative company of the villagers, numbly finishing her paintings. She spends each night alone on the beach with a small fire for warmth, numbly gazing out to sea until she falls asleep, wrapped in Shimizu’s cloak against the chill when her flames die down to coals. She’s woken each morning by the gulls as the fishermen put to sea, and drags herself back to the tavern to sleep a while longer before beginning the cycle all over again.

The first night, the skies are clear and cold.

The second, they are overcast.

The third and fourth nights are wet, rain extinguishing her fire early, as she huddles in her travelling tent for warmth.

The fifth night, wind bites at her skin and she spends the day which follows wrapped in blankets at the Shibayamas’ tavern.

After the sixth night, she begins to pack her things, planning to make an early start the following morning. She’s finished her paintings, finished with this village and its painful memories.

But Hitoka wakes on the seventh morning, after a cool, clear night on the shore, and isn’t alone.

She almost screams from surprise, then bursts into tears, because it’s _Shimizu_ , she’s back even though selkies never return after finding stolen skins, and it’s the most marvellous surprise in the entire world but it doesn’t make _sense_.

She puts off her questions though, because she’s already launched herself out of her sleeping roll to hold Shimizu as tightly as she dares.

“Hitoka-chan, I am so sorry,” Shimizu says, kneeling down beside her. She buries her face in Hitoka’s shoulder. “I…I couldn’t help myself. It had been so long since I was in the water… I _needed_ to be there. But I never meant to abandon you, or hurt you, and I know I did.”

She looks up, meeting Hitoka’s wide eyes with her soft grey ones, and slides her sealskin cloak off her shoulders, folding it over her arm.

“Hitoka-chan, you’ve given up so much for me, and taken such risks. I spoke to my cousin, and the rest of my family, and I’m decided. It’s time I gave up something for you in return. I…I love you so much, you know. Thinking of you has kept me going this last few months. It’s kept me going for _years_ , but we’re always apart, and I don’t want to do that any more. I don’t want to be away from you any more.”

Hitoka blinks, sure this must be a dream. Sure that Shimizu can’t be kneeling beside her saying these things—it must be all in her imagination. But the shingle crunches as Shimizu fidgets adjusting her grip on the sealskin in her hands, and somewhere off in the distance a gull cries. It’s too real, too grounded. Somehow—impossibly—it really is happening.

“Himura…” Shimizu continues, hanging her head. She shudders, and Hitoka reaches across the gap between them, faltering as Shimizu recovers and carries on:

“He stole this skin, stole my freedom, and kept me from the water. In time, he said he even wanted to move away from the ocean altogether, so I wouldn’t be ‘tempted’ by it. But you, Hitoka-chan, you have never taken anything which wasn’t freely given. You gave _me_ gifts, and I don’t know anyone who has done that before. I don’t know anyone who’s done that for any selkie before. So I’ve made up my mind. I’m _giving_ you my sealskin, Hitoka. I’ll stay on land with you, so we can be together.”

Hitoka stares as Shimizu presents the sealskin to her, eyes wider. “I—”

She stops. No. No no no, this isn’t right. This isn’t how the stories go. They _can’t_ be together like that—she’s already seen what it does to Shimizu. Seen that lifeless expression; seen her weep over how dry the land is beneath her feet, where it ought to be open water. Much as she wants more—so much more than their seven days—she can’t possibly accept this. She can’t possibly make Shimizu go through that much suffering just for her.

“You can’t,” she whispers, pushing the offered bundle back. “You mustn’t give me this, Shimizu. I love you too much to make you do that. You belong in the sea, where you can be happy.”

“I’m happy with _you_ ,” Shimizu says firmly. “I want to do this. I want to share your life instead of just watching it from the shore.”

“No, _please_ ,” Hitoka whispers. “When I got here—you looked so… Selkies aren’t meant to be on land. You can’t be happy here and I don’t want that for you. You don’t belong here.” She hangs her head. “You deserve better.”

“What I deserve is to make my own choice!” Shimizu says firmly, raising her voice for the first time Hitoka can ever remember.

Hitoka looks up, surprised. She’s never heard Shimizu sound so…so _angry_ before.

“Would you deny me my free will the same as that man?” Shimizu asks, getting to her feet. “Do you not trust me? Do you not _want_ me? Am I not a person in your eyes—just another selkie, another _creature?_ ”

She stands, holding the sealskin in her hands. With the rising sun behind her she’s a dazzling figure, so bright and beautiful that Hitoka can hardly bear to look at her.

“I thought you were better than this, Hitoka,” Shimizu cries bitterly, taking a step back towards the water.

“No, _no!_ ” Hitoka cries, scrambling to her feet as well. “I want to be with you so much it _hurts!_ But I love you too much to—”

She grabs Shimizu’s arm, leaning forward and bowing her head so that Shimizu can’t see her eyes filling with tears.

“Don’t you see? All the stories say that selkies don’t belong on land: that they wilt and fade away from the ocean, all the life and light going out of them and I love you too much for that, Shimizu. I love you too much to watch you suffer on my account. I’d rather cry alone every night than let you suffer by doing that to you! I won’t be a monster like that man, I _won’t!_ Shimizu, I love you more than life itself, but we’re _cursed_. We can’t be together and be happy, we just can’t. There’s no way for it to happen.”

Shimizu falters a moment. The anger fades from her face, replaced with shock. “Is _that_ what your books tell you?” she says coldly, gripping the sealskin tightly in both hands. “Those printed pages of ignorance and deceit you told me about? Do you believe them over _me?_ They don’t know anything about my people. _You_ don’t know anything about my people! I won’t let those lies come between us—it’s not your choice what I do. It’s my choice, and I choose the _land!_ ”

Grey eyes flashing, Shimizu shrugs her off and takes another step back, raising both her arms. Her muscles bunch, and Hitoka opens her mouth to take a breath, suddenly _knowing_ what’s about to happen—knowing and fearing—but her body has turned to silt and stone and the world slows to a crawl. Shimizu’s arms pull apart, and with an inhuman screech of anger and fury and pain, she tears her own sealskin in half.

There’s silence for one heartbeat. Two.

Shimizu stands frozen, and Hitoka can see the colour drain from her skin, leaving her white as wind-whipped sea foam. Her knees buckle beneath her and she pitches forward with a faint, gasping “ _Oh!_ ” to land on the shingle at Hitoka’s feet, limp and motionless and cold, _so cold._

 

* * *

 

Hitoka screams. Screams and lurches down to pull Shimizu into her arms, weeping and clutching at her and reaching for the sealskin so she can press the two halves back together. It doesn’t work— _nothing_ works, and for long, agonising seconds she fears that she’s lost Shimizu for good. She’s so pale, and so cold, and Hitoka can’t help herself, can’t help but drag her head onto her lap and lean down, pressing feather-light kisses into her hair and across her forehead, whispering in broken sobs:

“Shimizu, _please!_ Please don’t leave me. Stay with me, don’t _go!_ ”

She rocks back and forth on the shingle beach, nursing Shimizu’s motionless body in her arms, crooning and praying, muttering: “Come back, come _back!_ I…I love you Shimizu, _please_ don’t die now! Not after all we’ve been through. Not like _this_.”

The tears rolling down her cheeks are thick enough that the world is blurry and indistinct. She’s aware, increasingly, of a strange sound behind her somewhere, a muted muttering and murmuring, but it doesn’t matter. _Nothing_ matters any more, not if Shimizu is gone. After all she’s done: after all the miles she walked and years she waited, faithfully keeping her promises. Keeping them both safe, keeping her name—

Keeping her _name_.

Hitoka chokes on a lump in her throat, and swallows it down, rubbing the worst of the tears away with the back of her hand.

“Shimizu Kiyoko!” she croaks, though her throat is parched and sore from crying. “Shimizu Kiyoko, come _back!_ I won’t let you die! You gave me your name: you promised we would be together! You can’t die now, not if I have to live on without you!”

She leans forward once more, hugging the selkie’s body tightly against her own, and _feels_ the moment Shimizu draws breath. Faint and hesitant, but a breath all the same.

“ _Shimizu!_ ” she whispers like a prayer, pulling back to watch as the tiniest bit of colour returns to the selkie woman’s face.

Shimizu’s eyes flutter weakly.

“Hi…Hitoka-chan,” Shimizu murmurs. She gasps, wincing with transparent pain. “Now…now I _have_ to stay.”

Hitoka is sure she has never been so relieved and so devastated in her life.

 

* * *

 

They stay on the beach together until the fishing fleet returns. There’s a commotion as the fishermen see them both on the shore, with several of the villagers clustered on the path behind them, muttering and whispering amongst themselves but staying well clear. Hitoka watches dispassionately, still holding Shimizu closely in her arms. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the woman in her arms.

Shimizu is still slipping in and out of consciousness, seemingly unaware of where she is or what’s going on around her. Hitoka feels utterly powerless to do anything. She aches to be in Karasumi, wants to be safely back with her mother in their cottage by the cove. Even the promise of a long and lonely future is better than the thought that Shimizu might still die here, wilting and fading away as she had before, hopelessly out of place on the land and far, far from anywhere either of them might call home.

The sound of approaching footsteps scrunching across the beach makes her flinch, clutching Shimizu closer. She looks round, hunching forward protectively.

“It’s okay,” Kai says, coming to a halt. “It’s just me.” He swallows, taking a few breaths before adding: “Is…is she…”

Hitoka’s eyes fill with tears once more. “I don’t _know_ ,” she sobs. “Why did she do it? Why would she—” She waves at the torn skin beside her, scarcely noticing when Kai’s eyes widen.

He kneels down beside them both, resting his hands on his own knees. “I’ll admit it straight up: I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” he says. “But…she’s alive, right?”

Hitoka nods. She is. Shimizu’s alive. She _has_ to be. The prospect of the alternative isn’t something she can bear.

“Then we should get you both inside. It’s not a warm day, and there’s rain on the horizon. We can take better care of her somewhere safe and dry. I can carry her for you, if you’d like.”

Hitoka freezes. She doesn’t want to let go. Not for a minute, not for a _second_ . But it _is_ cold out, and she can feel the change in the air, the herald of poor weather on its way.

“Where?” she asks hoarsely, and her gaze slides past him to the line of villagers further up the shore by the fishermen’s cottages. She adds, bitterness seeping into every word: “No one will want a _selkie_ in their home.”

Kai shakes his head. “We’re all a little wary, I won’t lie. But most people are good at heart. I won’t suggest Himura’s old cottage to you both—I don’t think that will help, under the circumstances. But if no one else has room, you can both stay in my home. I don’t mind a little extra walk each morning, and it’s close to the shore.”

Hitoka swallows. “Why?” she asks.

Kai smiles gently, reaching out his arms and nodding at Shimizu. “You don’t have to be bound to people by fate to want the best for them,” he says. “I won’t pretend to be a wise or learned man, but anyone can see the connection you have to each other. It would be an even greater wrong than has been done to you both already to turn you out now.”

 

* * *

 

Shimizu drifts in and out of consciousness for three days, wrapped in every spare blanket which can be found beside the irori of Kai’s cottage on the shore. Hitoka spends almost every minute by her side, clutching her hands and whispering prayers for her health, dripping water between her parched lips. She tucks the torn sealskin beneath her futon, wrapped in clean oilcloth to protect it from any further harm.  

When Shimizu finally wakes, she stares at the ceiling with a deadened expression in her eyes, glazed and unresponsive. She eats and drinks mechanically, and allows Hitoka to gently wash and dress her in clean clothes, saying nothing. There’s no resistance to her body, no sign that she’s aware of where she is or who she’s with. The light has gone from her eyes, and it’s all Hitoka can do to keep from breaking down in tears as she helps her back to her bed.

A week passes, and then two, and Shimizu makes no further progress. Her body struggles to retain heat, even in the warmth of Kai’s small cottage, and much as Hitoka is sure that she needs the water, the only time Shimizu offers an resistance is when she’s dragged to her feet and led towards the door.

At a loss, Hitoka abandons her post one morning and runs down to the surf alone, wading until she’s waist deep in the water and screaming her pain out to the sea, begging for help, begging for someone to hear her and tell her what to do.

There’s no answer that day, nor the next, and Shimizu doesn’t show any sign of recognition when Hitoka returns to the cottage drenched in salt water, stinking of the ocean she should call home.

As the days go by, the weather grows worse, wind biting fiercely at her skin every time Hitoka ventures out. It’s too cold now to think of leaving; too late in the season to hope that she would be able to make it back to Karasumi even if she were travelling by herself. As it is, she would have Shimizu to worry about as well, and Hitoka’s not even sure if she has the _strength_ to stand and walk around, let alone the willpower.

The first of the winter storms comes and goes before Shimizu shows any further signs of recovery. Hitoka wakes the second morning after the weather calms down to see Shimizu staggering towards the door as though in a trance. She’s hot to the touch—hot and feverish.

“Where’s the ocean?” she mumbles, glassy-eyed as she feels all over the door. “I need— I need water, _water—_ ”

“It’s okay!” Hitoka cries, leaping to her feet and rushing over. “I’ll get you to the water! I’ll take you there now!”

She slides the door open, stumbling to get in front of Shimizu and help guide her down the path to the shore. She’s too weak for this—her face is flushed with fever, and she clutches at Hitoka with burning arms as they walk together, leaning against Hitoka’s slightly smaller frame for support.

“Not far now,” Hitoka murmurs, picking her way across the shingle, wincing as stones dig into the soles of her feet. If Shimizu is in a similar amount of discomfort she gives no sign of it, placing her feet mechanically, one ahead of the other in a direct line down to the water’s edge.

She falls to her knees when they reach it, pulling Hitoka down with her with a stifled shriek of surprise. The water is icy cold against Hitoka’s skin, but she can see the relief on Shimizu’s face break through her fever as they sit there. For the first time in weeks, Shimizu’s eyes clear, staring out at the water.

“It hurts, Hitoka-chan,” she murmurs. “I thought it might. But it will pass. I’m sure of that too. We’ll be happy together in the end.”

 

* * *

 

The winter passes slowly, and Shimizu’s recovery seems slower still. The glassiness in her expression fades after a while, and on some mornings Hitoka wakes to see her smiling across the cottage at her, seemingly content with her decision. But her body is still weak, tiring easily, and she slips easily into fevers or chills at the slightest provocation.

Hitoka’s guilt over their situation is twofold: she was unable to stop Shimizu from hurting herself so severely, and they have both ended up becoming a burden on the inhabitants of Nekomizu. Kai visits most mornings, seemingly unconcerned that he has been forced to sacrifice his home to accommodate the pair of them, and the Shibayamas’ son Yuuki stops by regularly to see how they are getting along, but for the most part it is a lonely existence. Unless the weather is fine Hitoka frets about Shimizu leaving the warmth of the cottage, and even on fine days, the shoreline is a mixed blessing.

There’s no denying that Shimizu seems brighter when she’s standing in the water and looking out across the ocean, waves lapping gently at her ankles. Her cheeks gain life and colour, and Hitoka can’t help but think that here, _here_ is the woman she loves, trapped on land against all reason and rightness in the world. Standing beside her is a gift—but also a curse. It puts Hitoka in the perfect spot to see that light and life fade away again as they walk up the beach to Kai’s cottage once more.

“Stop,” Shimizu says one day in the middle of winter, when the frost lies thick on every rooftop, and scrapings of snow nestle between blades of grass.

They’re halfway to the door, and Hitoka is fretting because Shimizu’s skin is feverishly hot to the touch once again, but she halts mid-step.

“Sh-Shimizu?”

“I can’t, Hitoka-chan,” Shimizu replies, hanging her head. “I have to stay away.” She pulls back, staggering unsteadily over towards the futon in the corner.

Hitoka follows, chewing her lip and ducking from side to side. “But…but you always feel _better_ in the sea!” she cries. “And your skin is so warm—”

Shimizu sinks onto the futon, legs folding awkwardly beneath her as though she can’t quite remember how to work them. She pats a space beside her, and lifts her rosy-cheeked face, smiling weakly.

“Hitoka-chan,” she whispers, and Hitoka is worried, really she is, but she can’t refuse Shimizu ever, especially not while she seems so frail.

“I’ll be right there,” she says though, snatching up an empty flask. She runs out of the cottage leaving the door wide open, darting along the track towards the stream and filling it with cold, crisp water. The air is light and clear—it’s a beautiful morning—so why does Shimizu want to stay inside?

All sorts of reasons immediately present themselves. Perhaps Shimizu is tired of her, perhaps she’s decided that Hitoka tricked her somehow, or she wants to return to the sea and is bitter that she can’t. Or, alternately, what if she’s sick, really sick, and knows in her heart that she can’t survive but wants to hold her one last time before…before she _dies—_

She can’t help but drag her heels on the way back, despite her worry. She loves Shimizu, she really does, but she never wanted this. Never wanted to see the person she loves suffering day after day, week after week. It’s eating away at her, slowly but steadily, even as the days on land seem to eat away at Shimizu herself. It’s a burden carried by both of them, but instead of the weight being shared it seems twice as heavy instead.

Shimizu accepts the flask gratefully when she returns, sipping the water slowly as Hitoka fusses around the cottage, straightening anything which isn’t perfectly in its place. She says nothing until Hitoka sits hesitantly beside her, knees drawn up and arms wrapped around them to clasp loosely in front. The train of ideas and fears keeps cycling around and around…

“I can’t go back into the sea, Hitoka-chan,” Shimizu says at last, and Hitoka’s mind goes blank. “I—”

Shimizu falters, looking down at the ground. “I think it’s making me worse. No, I _know_ it is. This… This decision I made, it has to be permanent. If I keep going back to the sea, I’ll never get strong enough to stay on the land. I need to stay away from it until I fully belong. To the land, and to _you_ , Hitoka-chan.”

“But you’ll get sick,” Hitoka says, leaning over. She takes Shimizu’s hand in her own and frowns. “You keep getting these fevers, and every time, it makes you better when you stand in the ocean—”

“Because it’s trying to take me back,” Shimizu finishes. She squeezes Hitoka’s hand gently. “But it can’t. My sealskin is no more, and each time I go to it I’m rejecting the land, and starting the cycle over. I need you to help me be strong, Hitoka-chan. I need you to keep me here until it passes for good. It will, I’m sure it will.”

Hitoka hangs her head. It’s…it’s too much to ask. To sit and keep Shimizu away from the ocean, just the way she was before? How can she do it? How can she be so cruel?

“I’ll try,” she whispers, and the warm fingers wrapped around her own squeeze more tightly.

“”It’s okay, Hitoka,” Shimizu says. “I trust you.”

Hitoka breaks, tears welling up and overflowing, and she turns to bury her head in Shimizu’s shoulder. It’s too much, too much pressure, too much trust, too much of _everything_ . Each day she wakes and sees Shimizu on the far side of the fire and marvels at how near she is, yet they _still_ seem so far apart. Sickness has replaced distance, and now the fear is worse, because what if Shimizu _doesn’t_ recover, what if she never gets past this weakness and these fevers, and Hitoka has to face the rest of her life alone, with no hope of reunion, not in seven years, not in _seventy_.

Warm lips press against her head, just above her hairline. She freezes, bottom lip trembling as Shimizu’s arms wrap around—too warm, and yet Hitoka is sure they would sear no less were they frozen.

“It’s okay,” Shimizu says again. “It’s my choice. We’ll be alright.”

 

* * *

 

Shimizu is resolved and unwavering, but her health only grows worse, temperature rising steadily by the day until she is wracked by fever. It’s all Hitoka can do to keep her cool, fetching fresh water—never salty—to bathe her with, and to trickle between Shimizu’s parched lips as she lies listless and groaning, eyes glassy, mind wandering. There’s no recognition in her expression during her waking hours, no sign that she knows where she is or what has come to pass.

Hitoka hears many things in those days; learns the names of Shimizu’s family, learns of the first meeting between Shimizu and Himura, all through garbled and confused mutterings and protests. Hears Shimizu’s part in an argument with her cousin about visiting the shore so often, and the stubborn refusal to do so—her insistence that humans could be trusted—which had caused the entire ordeal.

She feels sick, unable to see past her own part in the events which have happened. If she’d been more careful, if she’d followed her own mother’s warnings, would Shimizu have trusted another human enough to let her guard down? And now it’s too late, and they’re stuck weeks and weeks’ journey from the cove where they met, where Shimizu still dreams of visiting once more. The cove so present in her mind that she wanders it in her dreams, calling out to Hitoka to join her on the rocks, in the shallows.

But at length the fever breaks, and Shimizu sleeps truly. She’s thin— _too_ thin, she’s lost so much weight from the sickness and confinement—but when she wakes she looks across the room at Hitoka, and calls her softly by name. Hitoka is by her side in moments, taking her hand and asking what’s wrong, asking what she can do to make her feel better. She has food, or water, or—

“Stay with me,” Shimizu says.

Hitoka swallows, feeling heat flood her cheeks. “I—”

“We’ve waited long enough, have we not?” Shimizu asks, smiling gently. “But you ground me, Hitoka. You’re my…ah, I think fishermen would call you an anchor, holding me steady.”

Her eyes slip closed, and her grip on Hitoka’s hand loosens, enough that Hitoka is about to move away and let her sleep in peace. Shimizu’s eaten and drunk a little since the fever broke, but she still needs to rest, and it will be a long while before she has fully recovered her strength. But as she moves back, Shimizu squeezes her hand briefly once more and says:

“Please. _Stay_.”

 

* * *

 

It sounds like such a small thing. Hitoka thinks it probably _is_ such a small thing, going by the bawdy stories she’s heard told in taverns and inns, by the inhabitants of towns and villages large and small alike. But to sleep next to Shimizu—to sleep close enough that they can hear each other’s gentle breaths at night—seems like the greatest shift in the world.

She wakes each morning, and Shimizu is _there_. Not a dream or a memory or an illusion. Not a waif-like figure on the far side of a fire. She’s real, and Hitoka can reach out to rest her fingers against Shimizu’s cheek, can feel Shimizu’s fingertips on her own. Can press their noses together, eyes closed, hands clasped, somehow _together_ against all the odds.

In the back of her mind she knows not everything is fixed. Knows that Shimizu is still far weaker than she should be, and that there’s a constant layer of wistfulness to her expression, an off note playing out in the background of their days, nagging at her, reminding her that they are _cursed_ , that Shimizu is a selkie, and that selkies don’t belong on land.

But the days turn to weeks turn to months, and the worst of the winter fades into spring, and each morning they wake, side by side,  still marvelling that it can possibly be real. Each dawn is a gift, each day a blessing, an unasked for gift which they can share together, after all their time apart, all their waiting for the years to pass. And as the spring progresses, Shimizu ventures out of the cottage once more, building up her strength.

They walk up and down the hill together, exploring every nook and cranny of Nekomizu and basking in the warm sunlight and the gentle sea breeze. They venture along the coast, and although Shimizu does not set foot in the water, she seems content to walk beside it, sandalled feet skipping lightly over the gravel as they dance to the rhythm of the waves breaking upon the shore.

And as the spring rolls on, and the days stretch out, warmer and longer, Hitoka builds her courage, pushes her fears aside, buries that nagging fear into the furthest recess of her mind, and asks Shimizu, one evening when the sunset lights the hilltops ablaze with gold and pink and purple:

“Will you come home with me?”


End file.
